Master Plan Extends Vision and Value at Field Club of Omaha

Throughout a rich history that traces its origins to 1900, the Field Club of Omaha (FCO) has lived up to its mantra of being a place “where tradition meets modern.” From its earliest days, the club has been an innovator out in front of changing club-industry trends, while also maintaining a proud legacy that embraces its status as one of the oldest clubs in Nebraska, one of the oldest west of the Mississippi and one of the oldest Omaha businesses still in operation (and still situated on some of its original land). 

Even in its earliest days, as it changed from the Omaha Cricket Association to the Omaha Amateur Athletic Association and then the Field Club, FCO foresaw the value of providing a variety of recreational and social amenities that could attract families seeking a sense of community and a dedication to relaxation in a convenient location (the city’s Midtown neighborhood). As early as 1900, as FCO expanded its golf course to 18 holes, it also added seven clay tennis courts, bowling alleys, and even a baseball diamond and grandstand. A pool followed in 1927.

Staying True to the Mission

Fast-forward nearly 100 years, and FCO is once again demonstrating how it’s staying ahead of the times. While the club has experienced the same post-pandemic membership boost that has rejuvenated most of the industry, it didn’t have to wait to benefit from that fortuitous development. Even in the years prior to the COVID outbreak, when many clubs saw troubling attrition rates, FCO’s membership ranks showed steady growth, thanks to innovative programs such as a new Junior membership structure that successfully attracted Millennials, an attractive new policy for Legacy memberships, and enhanced incentives for existing members to sponsor new ones.   

After weathering the initial COVID storm, FCO also maximized its next surge in membership through a program that offered complimentary golf lessons, and with a new Clubhouse membership that offers introductory access to dining and other club amenities. All told, the club’s membership ranks have been on a steady upswing, with significant increases every year since 2017. That has now taken FCO’s total membership to 1,025 member families, according to General Manager Greg Gilg, CCM, CCE, PGA, with wait lists for its primary Golf and Social categories.

A key to attracting that growth has been FCO’s adherence to a time-honored tradition that has taken on even more meaning and relevance in today’s modern club environment: providing a genuine value proposition to all members. Value, in fact, is a featured component in the club’s Mission Statement, which affirms FCO’s goal of “[serving] the greater Midtown community as the friendliest, best-valued, inclusive club providing social camaraderie, recreation and lasting memories for its members and their families in the heart of the city.”

To continually enhance that value, FCO has also always recognized the need to stay ahead of how its membership growth can impact club operations and facilities. Before the current decade was even half over, it had already implemented all components of a Capital Improvement Master Plan for its golf course, pool and clubhouse (see box below) that was originally drafted prior to the pandemic. While many clubs hit the pause button on capital projects as they sorted out the pandemic’s stops and starts, FCO saw the importance of “taking the benefits that came from COVID and running with them,” Gilg says. “We didn’t want to waste the opportunity.”

Fully Engaged

After golf course improvements and a pool renovation were completed in 2022, the final phase of the Improvement Plan focused on FCO’s surrounding pool area, clubhouse and grounds. A survey of the membership in 2021 and subsequent focus groups had identified clubhouse aesthetics, including upgrades of the dining, bar and lounge areas that would include expanded outdoor dining, as a priority enhancement. 

Club committees, with the assistance of the McMahon Group, then began to study and make recommendations for how to provide those changes, while the Finance Committee devised a funding plan for them. Notably, even though the club’s governance structure gives its Board the power to have projects proceed without member approval, FCO then began an extensive communications campaign that would include additional member input and lead up to a member vote. “We felt that was the right thing to do, because of who we are and how much emphasis we place on our value proposition,” Gilg says.  

Members were given ample opportunity to gain full understanding of what the next phases would involve, as well as how they would be executed and funded, through “Renovation Talk” videos featuring Gilg and club leaders that were posted on a special Master Plan section of the FCO website, along with other information. In addition, town-hall presentations were held, update letters were e-mailed, posters were displayed and booklets were made available at the club, and another survey was conducted to collect members’ opinions about what they’d seen and heard that could help to refine the final plan. 

Through all of these communication efforts, members not only gained a clear understanding of exactly what the clubhouse and grounds phase would entail, but also a precise timeline and details of how the club would continue to function during construction. Assurances were made that there would be no disruption of FCO’s popular Fall Festival, which attracts some 2,800 attendees, or other traditional events like the Santa Brunch or Easter, even if they had to be offered more frequently and with smaller capacities. It was also made clear that member dining and bar service would continue as normally as possible by being moved to different locations around the construction activity. 

For questions about the funding for the estimated $5 million cost of this phase, FCO was fully transparent, sharing projections for revenues and member equity and the plan for retiring the debt acquired through the bank-financing portion of the project cost. Most importantly for the members, there would be no upfront assessment, with their contributions instead coming from a creative program that would replace their semi-annual food minimum with a capital-dues charge, and only amount to a net increase of $5 or $10 a month.

 All of these efforts to fully engage the membership in the process led to a ringing endorsement when the vote for the final phase was taken. It was approved by over 81% of those who voted—and even if non-votes were also counted as “no” votes, Gilg notes, it would have still passed with a 53% majority. 

Eager Acceptance

Once construction was underway, FCO continued its engagement of members by offering “Toursday”, on-site walk-throughs on selected Tuesdays. Members’ interest in getting a first-hand look as the changes took place was “more than expected,” Gilg reports, with he and his staff usually conducting over a dozen individual tours on those days.   

With those tours helping to build up further excitement and buzz, FCO members were ready and eager to begin to use and enjoy all of the club’s new features and amenities upon completion of the project.  “We’ve outperformed the first six months [of projected post-construction activity],” Gilg reports. “Overall we’ve seen more successful acceptance, more quickly, for every new area and feature [created by the renovation] than we anticipated.”

In particular, the use of three new golf simulators located in the same space as a new Goodman Pub (named for Johnny Goodman, the FCO member who won the U.S. Open in 1933 and U.S. Amateur in 1937) has been “a huge success that’s far exceeded expectations,” Gilg reports. Available for half-hour sessions from 9 AM to 10 PM, six days a week, the simulators (pictured below) have seen over 90% usage that’s continued through the winter months and created “a new attachment” to the club for many members, Gilg says. “It’s not just the same people who are always coming to use them,” he notes.  

Gilg also graciously credits the McMahon Group’s role in helping to generate the member engagement that led to enthusiastic approval of the final phase of the Master Plan and the successful results that have followed. “McMahon provided credibility, because of its experience with doing projects like these in so many different types of clubs,” he notes. “The renderings that [Director of Club Architecture] Glen Selligman and his team provided were fantastic, to show exactly what the changes would look like—and they were also vital for keeping the vision consistent, even when the makeup of our internal design team had to change along the way.

“McMahon’s greatest value was that it didn’t just try to apply a cookie-cutter approach and understood that this was a project for a club where resources don’t fall off trees,” Gilg adds. “Its people really took the time to identify and accentuate the unique things that would add to our value proposition, and to help us execute how that could be carried out successfully in our particular club space.”