Golf Course and Irrigation
New Irrigation System for The Maples Course - May 2022
Renovations to the 1971 Maples Course are well underway! We are excited to finally have power to the pump house after 6 months of irrigation work. The new irrigation system will allow us to begin sodding and sprigging the greens, weather dependent, in preparation for a targeted soft opening of The Maples this fall. As we continue to inch closer to Tee Off, the golf course is really going to start coming to life with fresh green sod and contrasting white sand outlining the bunkers. We ask that you would please refrain from entering the golf course and surrounding areas during this time; we will be focused on fertilizer and chemical spraying, as well as grass growth which can be extremely hazardous and fragile.
The current POA facility will be used as a temporary Pro Shop, so that golfers can easily access the course and patron the Lake Surf Grill. We hope to share more information on membership pricing, how to play the course, and tee time scheduling soon. In the meantime, we are working with the POA to temporarily relocate them in a construction office near the old Sales Office where we hope to begin construction in the near future. The POA will provide information on the timing of their move at a later date.
Woodlake Golf Superintendent
Chris Dwiggins, Woodlake Golf Course Superintendent
Atlantic National Capital is pleased to announce Chris Dwiggins as the Woodlake Golf Course Superintendent. Chris was previously the Golf Course Superintendent for The Dogwood Course at The Country Club of NC where he worked for 22 years. He is a local to Vass, NC and has been following the progress at Woodlake since it has been under new ownership. He comes to Woodlake with strong working relationships among neighboring Golf Clubs and years of industry experience. “Despite being fairly new on the Woodlake scene, Mr. Dwiggins has already proven to be a valuable asset to the redevelopment project and we are hopeful for what the future of Woodlake holds under his guidance and leadership,” states Cara Spencer, with Atlantic National Capital. If you see Chris around Woodlake, please give him a friendly wave and a warm welcome!
Opening Day at the Pool
Melissa and Darell Yates of HomeGrown
The grand opening of the pool and our Memorial Day celebrations were a huge success! We already have 225+ memberships for the season and have received a lot of great feedback. Woodlake Country Club has partnered with Darell and Melissa Yates of Home Grown, a Woodlake Resident, to provide food and drinks to Pool Members all summer long. Out of respect for his commitment to Woodlake Country Club as a local business, we ask that only small coolers carrying water and snacks be brought inside the Pool Area.
HomeGrown Hours
Sunday: 12:00pm - 6:00pm
Monday: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Thursday: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Friday: 12:00pm - 6:00pm
Saturday: 12:00pm - 6:00pm
Please note that pool memberships are still available for online purchase, and Country Club amenities are available to residents and non-residents. We will continue to keep a close eye on capacity as we work towards golf and clubhouse memberships.
Pool Hours
Monday - Sunday | 8:00am - 8:00pm
Adult Swim Only (21 and older) | 8:00am - 10:00am
Dam Reconstruction
We are also well underway with the design and engineering component of the Dam construction. The Engineers from Schnabel Engineering have been onsite for the past couple of months gathering geotechnical information and borings necessary for the new dam design and engineered plans. In the coming weeks, WithersRavenel will be obtaining survey locations of the elevations of all residential structures within several hundred feet of the lake shoreline. The elevations will be used by the Engineer working on the new dam design for permitting purposes, as well as a required flood study. In order to measure the finish floor elevation of the structure, WithersRavenel survey personnel may need to be on front porches or direction adjacent to the foundation of houses. Please note that the survey personnel will not need to disturb residents or knock on doors as they conduct the survey, nor will they need to be in backyards of residential properties. All survey personnel will carry business cards of the WithersRavenel Project Manager should any resident wish to speak in more detail.
We are happy to report that the Woodlake Property Owners Association has received the designated budget funding and has contracted with ANC to administer the grant funding to commence the project. Additional funding, however, is still needed for the remaining expenses associated with the Dam project. The biggest contributing factor for the additional funds needed is still the substantial increase in construction costs and materials, especially over the last 12 months. We have submitted a request to leadership in both the House and Senate to include the additional costs in this year’s budget. We have not heard a definitive response to our request; however, we should know something later this month once the new budgets have been released. In the meantime, we are looking at several ways to decrease our costs and save money on the project; including expediting and overlapping the schedule so we can begin construction as we receive deliverables during the design phase. Preliminary estimates show that even if we receive the additional funding, we will still be several million dollars short, as construction and material costs (such as concrete) continue to rise at an alarming rate.
We are currently exploring options, if necessary, to subsidize funding for this project. Our goal would be to avoid a special tax district, as initially proposed. That solution would need to be a part of a referendum ballot; causing considerable delays and we are already running up against a hard deadline on our permits. Another proposed solution to offset the increased construction costs would be to subsidize any major shortfalls through lake access/user fees or club memberships. It has been, and will continue to be, ANC’s goal to assist and oversee dam reconstruction for the community while keeping current and future costs of repairs, maintenance and operations on the dam at a minimum. It is important we work through a solution that would be the most amenable to all parties, the community, and avoiding any delays in the timeline of the project.
We feel it is important to be transparent and open in our efforts, as well as the obstacles that still lie ahead, but we remain hopeful that the legislature will approve our request for additional funding. Those efforts are being led in the Senate by Senator Tom McInnis and by both the Moore County and Cumberland County delegations on the House side. If the request is approved, it would limit ANC’s contribution to under $2 million and would help establish lower and more reasonable access and user fees, but more importantly, keep the project completion date on time.
We do not anticipate having answers until July; however, we will keep the community updated on any material events that would affect the project as soon as we are made aware of them. We appreciate the community support on this project, and give special thanks to the Woodlake Property Owners Association Board of Directors, whom we are working closely with on this project.