The University of Virginia Foundation is planning to build an indoor golf practice facility on the Birdwood Golf Course and is attempting to move the facility about 400 feet west of its originally planned location.
Fred Missel, U.Va. foundation director of design and development, gave two reasons for wanting to move the facility’s location.
“One is that the facility, when it was located in the east, required a road to come across … the viewshed from the Birdwood Mansion,” Missel said. “And it was not necessarily visible from the mansion, but it was definitely visible looking from the golf course looking back toward the mansion, and so we wanted to try to eliminate the need to cross that front.”
The other reason is to provide the Foundation a better opportunity to restore currently-existing buildings on the property, including what previously served as a carriage barn.
“We've been looking for ways to restore the property and the buildings on the property adjacent to the Birdwood Mansion, and we've been looking for resources that would allow us to do that,” Missel said. “By moving the facility to this location, it actually leverages our ability to restore one of the buildings that's there, it's actually an old carriage barn, into what will be the front entrance and lobby for the new practice facility, so that’s a huge benefit.”
The purpose of the indoor golf facility is to provide a home for the University’s golf program. The golf team currently practices at the Birdwood and other courses, but it does not have a home facility.
“A physical structure has really not existed for the golf teams,” Missel said. “This will give them a home.”
The facility will have heated indoor practice hitting bays that open onto the driving range for the team to practice in during winter and with inclement weather. There will also be locker rooms, study spaces, offices and conference space.
According to Margaret Maliszewski, the chief of planning and resource management from the Albemarle County Department of Community Development, the Foundation has a Special Use Permit to build the structure at the original location but needs an amendment to that permit to change locations. The amendment is still awaiting approval by Albemarle County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.
“The Planning Commission is involved because the move requires an amendment to an approved Special Use Permit,” Maliszewski said in an email statement. “The Planning Commission reviews Special Use Permits and forwards their recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors considers that recommendation in their final decision on the permit.”
The facility is expected to be complete in fall of 2018.
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