LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – As head professional at Heritage Hill Golf Club in Shepherdsville, Nick Sweeney said he was “very excited” when Topgolf announced plans to expand to Louisville earlier this year.
During visits to the driving range-and-entertainment chain’s locations in Atlanta and suburban Cincinnati, Sweeney said he was encouraged to see people who appeared new to the sport.
“Our job as PGA professionals is to grow the game of golf. That’s tough right now,” he said. “Anything that can help accomplish that is a benefit.”
But Dallas-based Topgolf’s efforts to rezone land and get approvals to build at Louisville’s Oxmoor Center have met with resistance from some neighbors who say land-use rules should keep the complex from moving in. Among other concerns: Noise, increased traffic and lights that would stay on well past dark.
The debate heads to the Louisville Metro Planning Commission on October 1 for a public hearing at the University of Louisville’s Shelby Campus. The commission, appointed by Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, could decide at that meeting to recommend that the Metro Council approve or deny the requests sought by Topgolf.
Essentially a zoning case, the saga also has ignited a new debate about “not in my backyard” arguments and how shopping malls diversify during a turbulent time for brick-and-mortar retail stores.
Hurstbourne, a suburban city of about 4,400 people, has formally opposed the Topgolf proposal and spent thousands of dollars trying to defeat it. Julie Raque Adams, a Kentucky state Senator who represents Hurstbourne, suggested in an April letter that other “nonresidential” locations ought to be considered.
“Top Golf would be a great amenity for the City of Louisville, but to consider the current site of Oxmoor Mall shows a complete lack of respect and total disregard for the existing residents of this area,” she wrote, adding that the project is “grossly out of context” with nearby neighborhoods.
But Topgolf has reviewed other locations in the area and believes only the Oxmoor site meets its criteria, said Tanner Micheli, Topgolf’s director of real estate development.
“If for whatever reason this site doesn’t work out, Topgolf will not be in Louisville,” Micheli said in an interview. “We will exit the market.”
Meanwhile, golf pro Sweeney and other Topgolf backers have flooded city officials with emails of support. They argue that the complex would create hundreds of jobs, breathe new life into Oxmoor and fits within the diverse mix of uses already permitted at the mall.
“This is anti-progress, anti-change fear mongering and nothing more,” Ian Massey, who used to live in Hurstbourne, wrote in a June email to Fischer.
Also in June, Topgolf announced a revised plan meant to address residents’ worries, moving the facility 200 feet to the west, adding a two-lane entry road and angling LED-lights downward. Oxmoor also plans to lower its parking lot lights, from 50 feet to 30 feet.
But those concessions didn’t satisfy Hurstbourne residents like Suzanne Higdon, who believes Topgolf at Oxmoor would be too close to her neighborhood. Reciting a refrain used by other opponents, she said she supports Topgolf at another, more suitable location farther from homes.
In particular, she takes issue with a signature part of Topgolf: The nets that enclose the outdoor driving range, keeping errant balls inside. Topgolf has asked to exceed a permitted height of 150 feet and erect poles for the nets of 175 feet.
“We don’t believe that they could ever do enough to make this palatable for this area,” Higdon said. She views the recent changes to the Topgolf plans as “taking a few steps back from a raging fire that’s towering high. You cannot get far enough away from that thing. In fact, you can see it for miles.”
Topgolf is seeking to build a three-story, 62,103-square-foot building and outdoor driving range at Oxmoor, replacing a Sears store that closed last year and extending into the mall’s parking lot. It would have more than 100 climate-controlled outdoor hitting bays, a bar, dining area and roof terrace.
The company wants to reclassify about 22 acres of already commercially zoned land at Oxmoor, broadening the possible uses to include establishments with alcohol licenses. It’s also seeking a permit to build a driving range, which is not allowed under the site’s current “C-1” commercial zoning.
And Topgolf is asking the planning commission to let it have other waivers and exceptions. Besides building taller light poles than are currently allowed, it hopes the board will allow it to encroach into nearby landscape and street buffers where development isn’t permitted.
The Greater Louisville Inc. chamber of commerce supports Topgolf coming to Louisville, although it doesn’t prefer a specific site, CEO Kent Oyler wrote in a July letter of support to Fischer and Metro Council members.
Oxmoor sits between Hurstbourne and the larger Jefferson County city of St. Matthews, whose chamber of commerce hasn’t taken a position on the project, in keeping with a longstanding policy of not endorsing candidates or developments, membership director Josh Suiter said.
St. Matthews Mayor Richard J. Tonini did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story. The city’s clerk, Susan Clark, said the mayor doesn’t comment on matters outside the city limits.
Lyndon Mayor Brent Hagan declined to comment.
Neither the nearby Hurstbourne or Oxmoor country clubs have taken formal positions on Topgolf, according to club managers who said they have members who are for and against the project.
Hurstbourne leads opposition
But in Hurstbourne, which abuts but does not include Oxmoor and has not authority over the rezoning, the city government has been active.
Commissioners voted 5-0 in March to oppose Topgolf’s request to rezone the property at Oxmoor, citing “active and public opposition” to the proposal. “I just see it as the wrong place for the right thing,” said Hurstbourne Mayor Mary Schneider, who cited examples of the company’s venues in other cities, such as Scottsdale, Ariz., and Tampa, that were built near interstates or away from established neighborhoods.
Hurstbourne has spent $3,000 on a retainer for Steve Porter, a land-use attorney who is representing neighbors and others who oppose the Topgolf project and agreed to spend up to $1,000 to rent a room at Shelby Campus for next Monday’s public hearing, said Jim Leidgen, the city’s administrative officer.
Signs opposing Topgolf sporadically dot yards in Hurstbourne, including in front of Barbara Preston’s house. Standing on her front steps last week, she rattled off a list of concerns: A potential increase in traffic through areas with young children. A decline in property values. Lights.
“You see where that rocking chair is pointing? We will see those lights,” she said. “They say we won’t, but we will.”
The small city also paid for leaflets encouraging people to show up for the upcoming planning commission hearing, to display yard signs and to send letters of opposition to Metro Louisville’s planning staff. Atop each flyer it reads, “CALLING ALL NEIGHBORS TO TURN OUT IN FORCE!”
Referring to guidelines already in place, attorney Porter noted that Metro Louisville’s land-use plan encourages “compatible” relationships between commercial areas and neighborhoods. The Topgolf proposal, he argues, goes against the plan’s requirements.
“They’re trying to change what Oxmoor has always been and that is intense commercial in the middle, surrounded by less intense commercial,” he said. “And this would get rid of that less intense and put it right next to residential land.”
The nearby suburban city of Bellemeade also has passed a resolution that supports Hurstbourne, said its mayor, Larry Odom-Groh. Bellemeade is farther away from the proposed driving range complex and on the north side of Shelbyville Road.
But Odom-Groh said Hurstbourne came to his city’s side when U of L proposed 155-foot-tall buildings on Shelby Campus about a decade ago, ultimately agreeing to changes that reduced the size of structures near Bellemeade.
“We’re returning the favor,” he said.
‘A good neighbor’
Standing on the roof of the shuttered Sears building last week, Oxmoor general manager Kendall Merrick said the shopping center has tried to be a good neighbor and listened to the concerns from residents.
She cited studies commissioned by Topgolf that concluded that the lighting scheme will result in “virtually no light trespass beyond the perimeter of the driving range,” while traffic during the busiest times is expected to “remain within acceptable limits.”
A noise study also done by a Topgolf consultant found there would be “barely perceptible changes in the actual sound levels and do so only at the very closest area of residential usage.”
Merrick said the distance from the hitting bays to the closest house in Hurstbourne is a quarter-mile.
“From the Topgolf venue to the city of Hurstbourne you’ve got this expansive parking lot, four-lane roads, soccer fields and a really dense tree line that separates the two properties,” she said.
As for other concerns, she said the top of the net poles would be about 10 feet taller than the high point of the nearby Hurstbourne Business Center – also known as the “Flash Cube” building -- at the corner of Shelbyville Road and Hurstbourne Parkway.
“I’ve rarely heard the visibility of the Flash Cube tower being a nuisance to the residents of Hurstbourne,” she said.
The facility would employ 500 people, according to Oxmoor and Topgolf representatives.
James Calton, who said he grew up in Hurstbourne and whose father still lives there, compared the concerns of neighbors amount to a “misinformation” campaign. He argues that nearby Oxmoor Farm will be most affected by light and traffic in the area won’t get appreciably worse.
“It’s a no brainer,” he said of Topgolf. “I mean, it’s going to bring economic impacts back to that location of the mall. So it’s not going to cause any issues. I don’t see any issues with it.”
Neighborhood locations
In the debate over Topgolf’s plans for Oxmoor, opponents repeatedly have argued that the company typically builds in areas that are surrounded by industrial development or in commercial corridors near interstate highways.
A WDRB News review of Topgolf’s website shows that its venues in places like Nashville, Miami and Tampa, for example, appear to be away from homes.
But it has opened other locations close to residential neighborhoods.
Topgolf built its Overland Park, Kan., driving range about 1,000 feet from a condominium development just beyond a grove of trees and a creek, according to Google Maps. Residents are now “immune to it,” said Dee Powell, who lives in the neighborhood.
“I haven’t had any problems and our community is pretty quiet,” she said in a telephone interview. Referring to the golfers hitting balls, she added: “You can hear them at night -- at least when you’re outside.”
But she described that noise as minimal and said she’s more concerned with the noise from her neighbors mowing their yards in the evening.
The Topgolf in West Chester, Ohio, also sits several hundred feet from apartments and townhomes. While there were concerns about lights and noise when the project was first proposed, “I can tell you now that they’re up we field no complaints about Topgolf from anybody,” said Aaron Wiegand, community development director for West Chester Township.
In the Druid Hills neighborhood of Birmingham, Ala., Topgolf also is close to a residential area. City councilor Darrell O’Quinn said in an email that he has not specifically heard complaints about noise or lights.
Outside of the neighborhood, he said, some people were “taken aback” by the complex’s impact on the city’s skyline.
“It is visible from miles away,” he said. “I don’t think most people find it particularly aesthetically attractive.”
Reach reporter Marcus Green at 502-585-0825, mgreen@wdrb.com, on Twitter or on Facebook. Copyright 2018 WDRB Media. All rights reserved.
