LA QUINTA - At first glance, the casual observer might mistake a smooth-running construction project for utter chaos.
Giant earth-moving machines scoop up 4 tons of the desert floor at one end of the SilverRock Resort project and then rumble to drop the heap on a stretch of flat land.
White, orange and blue stakes point in many directions. Backhoes dig 5-foot-deep trenches seemingly without reason. Tanker trucks spray hundreds of gallons of water on the dry desert to prevent flying clouds of sand.
Scurrying across the 200-acre SilverRock construction site are 120 workers laying irrigation pipe, smoothing gravel or pouring concrete for cart paths.
Watching the blur of activity with a knowing look is Roy Stephenson, the civil engineer charged with one of the toughest tasks in the Coachella Valley: Converting the barren stretch of desert sand and brush at the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains into a world-class golf facility that can host the PGA Tour's Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in 2006.
And the clock is ticking.
Officials are pushing for a January 2005 opening for the $13.9 million project, owned and developed by the city of La Quinta.
Stephenson knows that only an intricately choreographed work schedule involving engineers, architects and design consultants will ensure the project's timetable - and its overall success.
"To get them to get all of their work done and to have this all come together in really just a year and a half is almost unheard of," said Stephenson of the Santa Ana-based civil engineering firm Berryman and Henigar, which was hired by the city in 2002 to provide development coordinator services.
More pressure is coming from the PGA Tour and Hope tournament, which has a 15-year deal to play its event at SilverRock starting in 2006.
Tournament officials and the PGA Tour want a course with length and challenges to test the best players in the world. They also need space for the trappings of a modern golf championship, such as media, hospitality and corporate tents, a large compound for ABC-TV and acres of open land for parking.
Even higher expectations are articulated by the leader of the design team building SilverRock: golf legend and part-time La Quinta resident Arnold Palmer.
"It puts a lot of pressure on, simply because we just want it to be the best," said the 74-year-old Palmer, who has been involved with the design of more than 300 courses worldwide, including three in La Quinta.
"I want every course to be the best," Palmer said. "But this is very close to home for me, so I'm particularly concerned about how it comes out."
The stakes are high for La Quinta officials, too. The Palmer course is the first phase of a 525-acre development with two 18-hole golf courses, two hotels, retail shops and restaurants.
By developing the property, La Quinta becomes the fifth desert city to develop its own course in an effort to grab a share of the $1 billion desert tourism industry and to attract some of the 3.5 million annual visitors to the Coachella Valley.
SilverRock is one of seven courses under construction, further bolstering the desert's international reputation as a great place to play golf. The area already features 114 courses and will host five nationally televised golf tournaments in the 2004-05 season from October through March.
"For the city of La Quinta, golf is
really pretty much our industry," said Mark Weiss, the assistant city manager for La Quinta and the project manager for SilverRock. "The golf and hotel industry is what we are. So SilverRock seems like an appropriate venue for us to be in."
Yet, SilverRock isn't just about putting the city into the golf business, Weiss added.
"The whole concept is that we are going to use redevelopment dollars to develop a project that will generate (hotel and retail) sales taxes and transient occupancy taxes that we can use for police and fire and recreational purposes," he said.
Engineering dream team
Weiss said it's hard for anyone - golfers and non-golfers alike - to comprehend the challenge of transforming a barren stretch of desert into a world-class golf resort. It goes well beyond the machines and men that move the 1.3 million cubic yards of sand required to hit the on-time, on-budget opening.
Weiss and the City Council assembled a dream team of experts who could handle everything from design work to laying irrigation pipe.
"There are a number of different professional services that are negotiated. There are architectural services, engineering services," Weiss said. "You hire the best."
The three key members of the SilverRock team are:
Berryman and Henigar Inc. for civil engineering work. The company specializes in public works projects such as Petco Park, the new home of the San Diego Padres, and the city-developed Black Gold Golf Course in Yorba Linda. Stephenson, who has a home in La Quinta, previously worked as interim public works manager for the city.
Heinbuch Golf LLC of Canyon Lake and Palm Desert as golf construction manager. John Przybyszewski, the project manager for Heinbuch at SilverRock, oversees and coordinates the actual on-site construction work and has served in the same capacity at other desert courses.
Palmer Golf Design of Ponte Verda Beach, Fla. The design team, led by Palmer and Erik Larsen, must comfortably fit an 18-hole championship course into the land provided by the master plan, considering both the needs of the Hope tournament and the best players in the world as well as the golfers who will play the course the other 51 weeks of the year.
To meet the variety of grading, grassing and building deadlines, SilverRock has been broken into three phases, with various stages of the construction process unfolding simultaneously.
"Basically you have the golf contractor chasing the mass grader. And we're starting work on the irrigation so we'll have water when we start grassing the project," Przybyszewski said. "A lot of things happen at the same time."
The team's goal is to have grass growing on the entire course by September to ensure a January 2005 opening for public play.
"It's really important that the mass grader doesn't run into any problems or hiccups, because that throws off our grassing schedule," Przybyszewski said. "Our big thing is to have our grass down by Sept. 15, have the whole project grassed out, whether it's sodded or otherwise."
Deadlines and budgets
Even the best-laid plans face obstacles. Course design changes and delays are inevitable.
Hoping to identify those problems before they occur, Weiss conducts weekly meetings with contractors, consultants and La Quinta officials. The conversations touch on many aspects of the project, from obtaining permits to dealing with unexpected design changes to the master plan.
"I don't call them problems. I call them challenges, issues that we have to deal with," Stephenson said. "Normally time is not such a critical issue. You normally would have time to sit down, say, 'OK, let's set up a meeting next week.' Here we have to set a meeting up like the next day."
Worries over the deadlines and budgets at SilverRock are all part of La Quinta reaching its dream of a city-owned golf resort that rivals other desert resorts or West Coast resorts such as La Costa Resort in Carlsbad or those on the Monterey Peninsula. That dream began not with the January groundbreaking but with plans dating back to the city's first economic development plan in 1996.
"That plan actually makes a reference to trying to find property for a golf course," Weiss said.
After pursuing several pieces of property, the city bought the 525-acre SilverRock site from KSL Development in June 2002 for $42.5 million.
After land acquisition, the city approved a design plan by Palmer Golf Design in May 2003 and a contract that pays Palmer's company $1.05 million to create the course.
Palmer's challenges
For Palmer and his design team, the challenge at SilverRock is formidable: turning the featureless nature of the flat desert sand into a championship golf course.
Environmental laws prevent the team from using any part of the neighboring Santa Rosa Mountains. That means any physical features on the course must come from moving dirt to create hills, valleys and 20 acres of lakes.
"If you have good character on a piece of property, it is much easier," Palmer said. "We will create the character in this golf course. We will move the earth, move the land into the places we want it."
The next challenge is for the contractors to translate Palmer's design from blueprints to the land. As deadlines loom for grading to be completed before grass can be planted, speed and accuracy are equally important.
"These guys are extremely efficient at moving dirt, getting it done and getting it done quickly," Przybyszewski said of the mass graders and golf course contractors building SilverRock. "They are very efficient because they need to be for their business. They have to meet our deadline, plus they don't want to move anything twice."
Other elements - like a yet-to-be-designed water feature at the entrance of the course off Avenue 52, renovating a ranch house on the property into a temporary clubhouse and digging mandatory backup water wells for irrigation - will push the January deadline.
Yet, Stephenson said, even as the city strives for a January opening, meeting that deadline ranks behind maintaining the quality of the project and meeting the city's budget.
"We would never want to compromise the quality of the project we are building," Stephenson said. "I think we are all in agreement as part of the project development team is that No. 1 (priority) is we are going to build a high-quality project that is deserving of La Quinta's vision."
But will the budget and the demands for quality allow for a January opening?
"I'm very optimistic we are going to get it done," Stephenson said. "But I'm an optimist. You have to be."
Source: The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.)
