This story is appearing simultaneously in StetNews.org and OnGardens.org.
A proposal to rebuild the Tiger Woods-led indoor golf arena at Palm Beach State College with prefabricated metal instead of an air-inflated dome met sharp resistance Tuesday from the college Board of Trustees.
Trustees leasing 10 acres off of PGA Boulevard to the star-infused TMRW Golf League refused to immediately endorse the proposal for a metal building in place of the dome destroyed in November in high winds.
A little background: The clock is ticking on TMRW Sports Group, which has committed to broadcasting on ESPN its first match at the one-of-a-kind facility in January 2025.
But if promoters expected a quick sign-off from their landlord, the state college didn’t provide it during an hour-long discussion. Instead, trustees scheduled another meeting for next month.
PBSC Trustee Wendy Link asked college building officials to help find ways to "put lipstick on the pig.”
“I understand they have a business perspective, and they have to make this work from a business standpoint. We have to make it work from a college standpoint,” Link said. “But we're also talking about a building that you're saying is going to be here for 50 years. So it can't be just a Costco box. That won’t work.”
For the first time, trustees who signed the lease in November 2022 with NexGen Sports Group, TMRW’s parent, asked about sharing in the golf league’s proceeds. The lease gave the college student training opportunities, publicity, curriculum development and shared use of the facility.
TMRW Sports also made a $1 million donation to the Foundation for Palm Beach State College.
But the lease required no rental payments.
In exchange, TMRW got a site it could build on quickly. It broke ground in February 2023 during a star-studded event featuring Gov. Ron DeSantis, with plans to open less than a year later.
Of note: State college construction is faster because it does not have to go through the scrutiny of city zoning and permitting.
“Yesterday, we discussed a little bit about the part of the lease agreement about the revenue-sharing,” board Chairwoman Patrice Bishop said, referring to a private meeting with TMRW Sports partner Mike McCarley. “Have you given any more thought about how we might approach that or make some changes?”
“We've asked our team about what that could look like,” McCarley replied. “But you know that this building is considerably more expensive than the previous building. … So I think there's the reality of cost and the reality of expenses.”
A college report last year put the cost of the original building at $11 million. With the new approach, that number rose to $50 million in a report submitted to the trustees this month.
Those figures don’t include $30 million worth of technology that will be added to create the indoor golf course, a TMRW spokesman said.
McCarley, a former NBC Sports executive, founded TMRW with golf greats Woods and Rory McIlroy.
McCarley’s presentation included a single rendering of the proposed facility and a diagram showing that it would reach a height of 74 feet, 10 inches, which is slightly shorter than the 79-foot dome. The nearby Eissey Theatre is 93 feet high.
The pre-engineered building shell would be fabricated by Allied Steel Buildings and transported to the site in panels. It would cover the same footprint as already laid out for the dome, allowing for a 135,000-square-foot building. The goal would be to get the site enclosed by August.
The air-inflated structure had been viewed in the 15-year lease as removable, meaning TMRW could return the site to PBSC in its former state. That’s less likely with a metal building expected to last 50 years and withstand Category 5 hurricanes, trustees said.
The lease would need to be amended to let TMRW Sports move forward, prompting Link, who is the county’s supervisor of elections, to also ask for a financial commitment.
“I just want to recognize that the deal has changed and that the terms need to change along with it. And that may include some funding that goes with that,” she said.
As construction proceeded last year, TMRW Sports announced 24 professional golfers had signed to six teams. Among them: Woods, McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler.
Workers inflated the 3-acre dome in October. But on the night of Nov. 14, two generators failed, killing the power and deflating the dome. The next day, a freak storm produced high winds all day long, ripping the downed parachute-like material to shreds.
TMRW Sports announced it would rebuild and pushed the first match back a year, to January 2025.
A representative told trustees in November they would identify a new approach in weeks, keep the board informed and share the new concept as soon as it became available.
How you play the game: Matches turn on a three-on-three, 15-hole team competition, pairing simulated long shots with actual short shots to a green that can be manipulated to change configuration.
The arena, built as a TV studio, would have seating for 1,500 fans. With the new metal approach, the backstage area can accommodate 1,000 people, up from 500. But much larger audiences are expected on ESPN, which signed on to broadcast the weekly Monday night matches live.
This story was corrected after publication to remove a reference to TMRW Sports promising to return to the board with a new concept in January. They promised at the November trustees' meeting to have a solution within weeks and to keep the trustees informed.
This story was originally published by Stet Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
