Some homeowners who live near the proposed site of Suite Shots, a golf entertainment facility, oppose the development, saying the tall poles and netting along the perimeter of a golf range would be an eyesore. Below is the proposed layout of Suite Shots. The range would be in the southeastern section of the property. Glen Oaks, a gated community, is less than a half-mile north of the proposed development. Architectural rendering and site map special to the Business Record

Six residents of Glen Oaks, a gated community built around a private golf course in West Des Moines, voiced their opposition today to the proposed development of a golf entertainment facility planned south of Grand Avenue and west of Interstate Highway 35.

The residents said that Suite Shots, a proposed three-story, 50,000-square-foot building with a restaurant, bar and 60 climate-controlled bays from which golfers hit balls onto a range, would lower the values of their properties and be an eyesore to an entryway into West Des Moines.  

“I always assumed something would be going back there,” Kevin Hogan, who lives at 5550 Little Leaf Trail, said during Monday’s meeting of the planning and development subcommittee that includes two West Des Moines City Council members. “I never assumed it would be a kind of entertainment district, per se. … It’s going [to be] like having a football game going on in your backyard every night until 1 o’clock in the morning.”

Before the proposed $26 million development can move forward, zoning must be changed on the 25-acre site on which it would be located.

The subcommittee, which includes council members Renee Hardman and Matt McKinney, heard about the proposed zoning options. They also heard from angry residents who live about a quarter-mile north of the proposed Suite Shots site.

In November, local developer Paul Cownie announced that he was partnering with Fargo, N.D., developer Kevin Christianson to bring Suite Shots to the 25-acre site.

Suite Shots would be located on 10 acres in the southeast portion of the property. A driving range would be located on the east side of the building. The range would be surrounded by 150-foot-tall poles with netting designed to keep golf balls inside the 250-yard range. Golfers would hit balls toward Interstate 35, Cownie said. The range would be lit at night by LED lights positioned to shine downward.

“Everything is oriented to the east,” Cownie said during Monday’s meeting. “We’ve put this project … in the far corner by design – to be as friendly as possible to Glen Oaks and other neighbors. “In terms of noise and lights, I think we’ve got bigger issues with the federal interstate [that is] contiguous to Glen Oaks and in the neighborhood than with Suite Shots.”

Cownie, in an interview, said the portion of interstate that is east of Glen Oaks is among the busiest in the country. He said traffic on Grand Avenue west of the interstate is only going to get more congested in the coming years.    

Grand Avenue “is going to be six total lanes and over 50,000 cars projected a day,” he said. “That’s where this corridor is going, and Suite Shots is a great complementary project to this corridor. And it’s complementary to the RecPlex also.”

(The city of West Des Moines this fall opened its MidAmerican Energy Company RecPlex at 6500 Grand Ave., which includes two ice rinks, a 150,000-square-foot fieldhouse, an esports center and outdoor turfs.)

The outspoken Glen Oaks residents, however, don’t see the golf entertainment project as a good fit for the corridor.

“Pretend for a moment that you’ve built your dream home high on top of a hill in arguably the nicest gated neighborhood in Iowa, with its several million dollars of assessed property values, and ask yourself, ‘Would you want this in your backyard? Would you want to drive by and look at this every day?’” Josh Janeczko, who lives at 1753 Glenleven Terrace, told the subcommittee.

Janeczko, who owns West Des Moines-based Innovative Injection Technologies Inc., told the committee that Iowa has no other development like the proposed Suite Shots.

“There is nothing like this in our community, so none of you know the impact that it can have on our property values,” said Janeczko, who implored the council members to do research before allowing the project to move forward.

McKinney assured Janeczko that the council would do research before making a decision on the project.

Cownie said he is in the process of having light and sound analyses completed as well as what homeowners would see from their properties. He said the studies should be completed in the next few weeks.

The council members didn’t comment on their preferences on what zoning of the property could be.

Cownie, however, said he’d like to see zoning that would allow other developments on the land, including a hotel.