A new day is dawning for clubhouse planning. When club operations and offerings change as they are now, so should the facilities that contain them. Good clubhouse architecture is not just about attractive interiors and trendy exteriors. Clubhouse design, floor plans, relationships between rooms, staff safety and how to best serve members efficiently and safely are the challenges planners face today. Now, with new rules and regulations governing our clubhouse operations, the facility planning function has become more important than ever. In order to accommodate new COVID-19 period architectural requirements, there is the opportunity to cast aside some stubborn past facility practices that have become obsolete.
Clubhouse planning for most clubs will be primarily altering existing buildings. This way they can serve a new set of requirements for a new generation of members. Take a look back not so long ago at clubhouse design: formal dining and living rooms, massive locker rooms, limited bars except for the men’s grill, lack of outdoor dining areas, lack of fitness facilities, summer or winter heavy seasonal use (often times closed in off seasons), facilities primarily for adults, total absence of family-friendly facilities (except a swimming pool designed for adults), espousing an anti-family environment where “children are to be seen and not heard.” Yet, the club industry has transitioned from the above yesteryear clubs to what they are today. Now, clubs will face the next strategic changes to how clubs will serve members: This can be classified as the postCOVID-19 club and its post-COVID-19 clubhouse.
To determine what this altered clubhouse will be, clubs have to first understand their post-COVID-19 mission to adapt their clubhouses accordingly. The strategic mission of a club always had four components defining its purpose by identifying:
1. Who the club serves
2. What the club provides
3. The quality level wanted
4. What makes the club unique
There’s a fifth component in the post-COVID-19 world that must be addressed: What makes our club safe and secure? This safety aspect will now affect clubhouse design both for the remainder of 2020 and very possibly for the long-term.
COVID-19’S IMPACT ON CLUBHOUSE DESIGN, MEMBER USAGE AND PERSONAL BEHAVIOR
Clubs evolve just like society. Many clubs that served special segments of society are gone as the country became more diversified. This is neither bad nor good. It just reflects a changing society. But the changing compositions of club memberships bring new challenges and demands on our facilities. Six major societal trends—community building, technology, role for women, health/wellness, scarcity of time and safety—will usher in a new approach to facility design post COVID-19.
POST-COVID-19 CLUBHOUSE DESIGN
Today the primary purpose of the country club clubhouse is the social and dining experience that bring members together.
The clubhouse concept provides the place where members create their community of friends. The most desired post-COVID-19 clubhouse design characteristics in reopening clubs for the immediate future include:
1. Controlled clubhouse entry to avoid unwanted access from threats to safety and security, not just for health reasons but from unsavory characters. The primary clubhouse entry becomes much more important and will need control points for member and staff testing and a holding area for arriving members.
2. Fenced or enclosed outdoor dining areas, playgrounds, swimming pools, tennis court areas, etc., to prohibit unauthorized access, much like clubs provide for major golf tournaments. Thus any person entering the clubhouse and grounds (not including the golf course and practice areas, which must have their own controls) must be tested for COVID-19 to the extent possible until the virus threat is over.
3. Limit access to clubhouses and grounds to members and their immediate families until capacity requirements are expanded and better control options are available.
4. Clubs should go the extra mile in protection protocols for dining areas, which will be subject to the same restrictions placed on public restaurants. If properly done, dining safety, both inside and out, can be provided. Of course, dining seating, staff and member protection features as well as stringent cleaning of multiple seating areas are necessary.
5. Special rules for the club’s non-golf recreation areas—both inside and outside—should make clubs safer than public, unrestricted facilities. A challenging club activity will be swimming pool use this summer. Health departments set their own requirements for public pools, but some jurisdictions may allow private club pools to open based on restricted usage requirements.
6. Large attendance functions at clubs also will be determined by local rules, restricting group size, table spacing, participation limits on dance floor usage, eliminating buffet service, requiring special food service protocols and masks for members and staff. Clubs will also need to determine how to screen attendees and ensure rules are followed.
7. Changes to kitchen usage and design will be a challenging issue for clubs. Food service needs controls for clean and soiled areas to avoid cross contamination. Of particular importance will be the use of negative pressure HVAC systems and separating cooking and plating areas from soiled plates and cleaning areas. Dishwashers must be provided with face masks and eye covers as well as protective aprons and trash disposal will require special procedures to avoid accidental exposure to infected waste.
8. Facilities will need to be adapted to address new policies and procedures to keep the club healthy, and staff trained and monitored to keep themselves and members safe. Add signage for personal distancing, barrier controls, sanitizer stations and communicate new rules and educate your club community on new protocols and guidelines for club usage.
9. Staff offices where employees are working in very tight, multiple desk offices will need proper spacing and protection.
10. Heating, air conditioning, electric and plumbing systems will need evaluation for spreading germs and viruses in the air, in the water and by touch on plumbing fixtures, light switches, etc.
11. Fitness facilities, spas and whirlpools will need spacing, stringent cleaning procedures after each use, limits on users, more staff supervision and enforced rules. It will be local health department rules that will govern, but clubs need to develop programs to assure members that their facilities are safer than public facilities.
12. Employee facilities need to be evaluated to determine if they meet new health and safety standards—especially OSHA requirements—including access to PPE and expanded staff locker rooms for changing and showering. In addition, staff should have health screening before shifts, staggered shifts and have appropriate personal distancing to all areas for ingress and egress throughout the club. Primitive employee areas in many clubs today will have to be upgraded.
13. As clubs implement new, infection prevention measures throughout the club for staff and members, it’s likely that clubs will have a COVID-19 case infect the clubhouse facility. As such, each club needs to have an Emergency Response Plan for disinfecting a building, with EPA-approved disinfectants and equipment on-site to do it quickly and effectively by trained club personnel.
14. Finishes in clubhouse interior spaces will need to be studied to identify high-touch areas for more frequent cleaning and easy to disinfect surfaces. Clubhouse restrooms, showers, saunas, steam rooms and kitchens, will need new sanitation procedures so they can be frequently and effectively cleaned many times a day.
15. Some areas like snack bars at swimming pools, fitness centers and golf halfway houses with self-serve soft drinks and condiment stations with waiting lines will have to be reconfigured with the possibility of more staff being required to maintain personal separation and adequate service.
POST-COVID-19 CLUBHOUSE USE AT THE CITY CLUB
City and city athletic clubs have special challenges and will require additional facility adaptations and protections beyond those of a typical country club. Due to the significant size of many city club clubhouses of more than 100,000 square-feet of floor area in myriad departments, dining offerings, multiple athletic floors, hotel operations—and being in densely populated areas where the cross contamination from COVID-19 has been particularly rampant—these clubs will be the most challenged to reopen. It would again be very important to make such clubhouse sanctuaries for their members in their urban centers. All club departments should initiate reservation requirements to limit excessive usage. All staff and members, just like for country clubs, would seem to need masks and gloves, antiseptic controls and an emergency response plan.
ADAPTING FOR A POST-COVID-19 FUTURE
As the club world begins its inevitable reopening of facilities, strongly consider which club offerings and facilities need upgrades for your club and its members. To best serve members safely, club leaders must adapt facilities with flexibility because no one knows what the post-COVID-19 future will ultimately bring. Clubs should consider having a COVID-19 impact analysis plan done to analyze their facilities for safety. Additionally, as clubs reopen, it is critical to have a short-term reopening plan for this summer, an intermediate plan for the fall and a longer term plan for the year 2021.