The financial crisis that rocked the world economy in 2008 was especially devastating for the real estate market, with builders, developers and many others with a stake in the construction industry suffering losses of such magnitude that bankruptcy and exit often appeared the only feasible recourse.
The Bonita Bay Group was one such developer, with a showcase development in southwest Florida located between Naples to the south and Fort Myers to the north. Caught in the vise of a collapsing real estate market and disgruntled residents, the developer was able to negotiate a sale of the club assets to the community members in 2010, a membership that then proceeded to accomplish a remarkable turnaround.
With some 2,000 members, The Bonita Bay Club is now the largest private club in its area. The path back to sound financial health and strong membership engagement has required a creative and sustainable balance between the club’s strong golf heritage and new and emerging needs.
The current general manager, Dan Miles, puts his finger on the key ingredient that drove the revival, crediting the club’s leadership with a clear vision. It was the board in particular that went all-in, Miles explains, signing on for “a very aggressive rehabilitation, renovation, and upgrade of all of the facilities.”
Such improvements fell under a series of stepwise vision projects, the first of which, labeled Vision 2013, focused on the clubhouse dining facilities and golf infrastructure to the tune of about $12 million.
Next up was “Vision 2015,” which allocated $17 million toward a new tennis facility (adding to Bonita’s 18 preexisting courts) with an exhibition court, stadium seating, and café; a new aquatic center that is due for completion in 2016; and, most significantly, a lifestyle center about to debut this spring.
“Make no mistake, we are a golf club,” says Miles. But throughout his tenure and especially when talking with potential members, the invariably reoccurring question presented itself: “What am I going to do, or what is my family going to do, when I’m not playing golf?”
Taking a Mulligan: Bonita Bay Tees Up Better Health
For a club that has long prided itself on its top-flight golf offering, this newfound emphasis on health is perhaps a new standard by which other clubs will be measured.
Next to the first tee is the club’s “big idea,” the aptly named Bonita Bay Club Lifestyle Center. It is built on the bedrock that health and wellness are lifelong pursuits, representing enduring needs and wants embraced by Bonita’s core demographic.
Bottom line: Fitness and health are not fads. Fads die out; the desire to be your best and to grow stronger does not. We are learning more and more about how to maximize our overall vitality and fitness and, by extension, our physical, mental and spiritual well-being.
While all clubs have a niche interest that caters to golf or some other avid pursuit, a common denominator is that people want to look and feel better and to truly thrive across the many stages of life.
Integrative Medicine
The purchase and subsequent creation of Bonita Bay’s Club Lifestyle Center—a 60,000-square-foot building (30,000 of which is operated exclusively by Bonita Bay) will be fully renovated this spring—represents a conjunction not just of age and wealth demographics, but also more broadly of the club and health industry as a whole.
A watchword for this phenomenon might well be called integrative medicine, a trend in medicine that is casting a wide net to catch best practices from many sources, including the facilitation of the body’s innate healing powers. Good health has a certain self-cultivated quality and therefore the promotion of our own well-being will most likely be the integrated processes enlisting the support of our daily routines—habits, fitness, diet and other lifestyle patterns.
At the same time context and environment are important. Our surroundings and our social interactions can contribute mightily to a sense of well-being and our motivation to move out along the path toward better health. Integrative medicine is a big tent—bridging eastern and western approaches, traditional and alternative medicine. It does not necessarily shun medications or surgery, but does shift the focus away from a reactive response to acute illness toward a more preemptive emphasis on restorative health.
“Integrated medicine, especially from the standpoint of primary care, rehabilitation, and physical therapy, is really the next step for members who are beginning to look at their health and wellness in a different frame of mind. And its something were extremely excited about,” says Fred Fung, Bonita Bay’s assistant general manager.
So how does Bonita Bay’s Club Lifestyle Center accomplish this?
For one thing, they are upping the ante when it comes to health knowledge and medical expertise. The club has entered into a collaborative agreement with Lee Memorial Hospital. More than a fitness center, more than a medical facility, Bonita’s lifestyle center will be one of the best new programs anywhere for a holistic approach to health and overall well-being.
“Life is no repair shop,” says Miles, as he strives to offer a more natural, more compatible and more convenient approach for his members. Medicine, exercise and recovery all potentially combine seamlessly as a member could conceivably visit to get a haircut, attend a Pilates class, take a steam bath, and rehab from their hip replacement all in a single afternoon.
Golf Gets Healthier
Not surprisingly, Bonita Bay’s focus on golf also gets fully expressed in its fitness and health programs as well as in its long-term strategic plans and investment priorities. The two programs—golf and fitness—are mutually reinforcing.
The golfing program enlists the services of no less than six Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) certified fitness professionals—nearly as many working on the physical training dimension of golf as on the mechanics of striking the ball. And thus the golf fitness facility gets high levels of utilization.
Let it also be said that healthier and more fit golfers are quite likely to play more and better golf. And this is precisely what Miles reports. Golf rounds are up a robust 22 percent, with nearly 120,000 rounds played in the sweet spot of Florida’s golf season, which is January to April.
More Engaged Members
Bonita Bay Club is a large community, with 2,000 members, 90 holes of golf spread over five courses. So the appeal of this community must remain fresh and vital if it is to continue to attract its core affluent market, which has many choices. In this competitive marketplace, Bonita Bay does more than hold its own: it attracts more than 100 new members per year and currently is at full capacity with a wait list.
According to the New World legend, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León scoured the Florida landscape searching in vain for the Fountain of Youth. Perhaps he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. When the Bonita Bay Club’s Lifestyle Center officially opens this spring, we will witness a distinctively 21st century approach to longevity, one that is highly-integrated, people-focused and community-oriented. It’s time to join the club.
Club Trends Spring 2015