Boulder City spends away, beckons visitors to play

Wednesday, July 4, 2007 | 1:03 a.m.

Dick Bravo is one of the retirees who makes Boulder City Golf Course his home away from home.

And it doesn't matter to the 79-year-old whether the city makes a profit on its municipal course. He sees it as a key to his happiness - and that of many others - in the small community about 20 miles from the Strip.

"I think it should break even," Bravo said. "It's a service for the citizens of Boulder City. If people from the valley come out, all the better."

That attitude has allowed Boulder City, with a population of 15,000, to acquire a pair of golf courses and a mountain bike park, while reaching lease agreements on other outdoor facilities.

Boulder City is continuing to grow as an outdoor destination for tourists, while providing some of the best facilities in Southern Nevada for residents. A new golf resort, combined with a pair of extreme sports ventures, might push the city over the top as a go-to place for both adrenaline seekers and those more content with a 9-iron.

But the golf courses, financially and figuratively, are missing a lot of greens.

The Boulder City Course lost about $1.3 million during the past three years, and since 2004 the city has had to transfer $4 million from other funds to operate the newer Boulder Creek Golf Course. The course has lost an additional $662,000 in operating revenue since 2004.

But if golf has cost the city more than $6 million during the past three years, many such as Bravo don't care, finding that an acceptable quality-of-life trade-off. His only complaint is that the city has nearly tripled the price of a season pass, from $624 to more than $1,800, for the coming year.

The golf course losses are the only serious financial hit the city takes from its recreational facilities. And many are willing to accept that loss and welcome visitors in exchange for the advantages of having a range of recreational offerings in their back yard .

Last year Boulder City had a $4.4 million budget for culture and recreation, 9 percent of its total budget.

Councilman Mike Pacini acknowledge s Boulder Creek hasn't worked out well financially . But he and other city officials hope that the addition of a hotel and more marketing will turn around the course's finances .

In the coming months the city expects to see revenue flowing in from some of its sports facilities. Leases at the mountain bike park, a motocross park and a golf course hotel, for example, will bring in $393,000 annually.

The city recently entered a lease agreement for a hotel to be built at Boulder Creek, earning the city $173,000 annually. It's also adding high-speed aerial zip lines to the already popular Bootleg Canyon mountain bike park, an agreement that will net the city at least $130,000 a year. And a private group is paying the city $90,000 yearly to start a new motocross track near U.S. 95.

"They fit the mold of this outdoor recreation niche and get people out here," Pacini, who also is the president of the Boulder City Tourism Commission, said of the facilities. "And our own families get to use them ... Plus, we get the lease payments."

In addition, a gun club on the eastern outskirts of the city plans to add a few shooting pits. A fixture in the city since the 1930s, the club has a long-term $1-per-year lease.

The city also has a privately run BMX track at Veterans Memorial Park, and provides the land for free.

And just beyond the city's borders is Lake Mead, which draws millions of tourists for fishing, boating and exploring.

Clearly, Boulder City is starting to look like a great setting for an Outdoor Life Network television special, or maybe a home for the X-Games.

Part of the draw is simply that Boulder City is, geographically speaking, the largest municipality in the state, thanks to its purchase of federal land in the 1990s. The city has thousands of vacant desert acres that are perfect for biking, hiking or shooting.

"Space is always a consideration," city spokeswoman Rose Ann Miele said about the growth of the recreation facilities. "Where are you going to go with a motocross track? Golf courses take space. Parks take space."

The city also is exploring a new police training center and shooting range for Silverline Road.

Much as residents like their community's diverse recreational amenities, however, some have doubts about the shooting range idea in light of a massive planned Clark County gun complex.

There are few concerns, though, about the outdoor sports explosion affecting life in Boulder City.

"Anything we can get in here with outdoor sports, I think it's great," said Harry Helfrich, the gun club president.

Visitors would be nothing new to the city, a place that has been drawing tourists since dam workers started the city in the 1930s. Seven decades later, Boulder City remains a popular stop among travelers headed to Lake Mead or Hoover Dam.

"I think Boulder City is something of a resort town," newly elected Councilman Travis Chandler said. "My sense of the community is that this is the sort of activity we want to have. It's clean and consistent with our clean-green attitude. It's certainly better than heavy industry."

The potential for traffic worries some. In the next few years the Hoover Dam Bridge will open, bringing thousands of cars and tractor-trailer rigs through the city. More vehicles headed to dirt bike races or fairways could further clog the roads.

But most see more traffic as a small price to pay if the city eventually starts turning a profit on its golf courses and making money off adventure sports athletes trekking to Bootleg Canyon.

And if the new amenities draw people to the quaint town, that's fine with many residents.

"I think it's about time," said Iris Bletch, 76, a former mayor who has lived in the city since the 1950s.

"I'm not for the kind of growth they have in Henderson and Las Vegas. But I realize there has to be something."