CASE STUDY
COLUMBUS COUNTRY CLUB
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Type: PACE Financing
The Client
Columbus Country Club (CCC), located just east of downtown Columbus offers members golf, tennis, pickleball, athletic and leisure pools, and a newly renovated clubhouse. The champion golf course is one of the best in Central Ohio, once hosting the PGA Championship tournament and recently awarded the elite Distinguished Club award by The BoardRoom magazine in 2020.
The Challenge
With a focus on improving control of the club’s building automation system, the Columbus Country Club sought to make capital improvements to maximize comfort without have to raising membership fees. The CCC prioritized upgrades to the clubhouse but didn’t want to use cash or take on debt to pay for the improvements.
The Solution
Plug Smart worked with the club to identify and prioritize energy efficiency and facility improvement measures. We compiled a comprehensive improvement project that met both the improvement needs of the club and the eligibility requirements for the regional Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) funding program, which requires no money out-of-pocket and utilizes the savings created by the project to pay for the improvement measures over time. The upgrades included: lighting, building automation controls, HVAC, and a hot water system replacement. For country clubs, PACE is an ideal tool to make capital and operational upgrades to aging facilities without impacting cash-flow or raising member fees.