DuPage settles final Oak Meadows fire claim
DuPage County Forest Preserve officials have commissioned a study of the district's golf operations following settlement of a final insurance claim relating to the early 2009 fire that destroyed the Oak Meadows clubhouse.
Commissioners approved a $35,500 contract with a Chicago-based firm that specializes in recreational land use to audit the district's three golf courses, officials said.
The contract was approved after the district settled its loss of business claim for nearly $1.4 million. The district already had received $5.6 million for the loss of the building and $425,000 for the loss of the building's contents from its insurance carrier.
The study will determine if there's a niche the forest preserve's three golf courses could fill in the region. District officials say they want to use Oak Meadows in Addison differently than neighboring Maple Meadows in Wood Dale.
"Basically we're going to look for our sweet spot in the golf business," said Mike Palazzetti, the district's deputy director of operations. "In the past, we've kind of competed with ourselves between Maple and Oak Meadows."
The district's third golf course is the nine-hole Green Meadows in Westmont.
Money from the insurance settlements will pay for the study as well as the pending demolition of the gutted clubhouse, Palazzetti said.
"We're hopeful the remainder will be enough to cover the full cost of whatever we rebuild there," he said.
Director of Golf Operations Dean Westrom said the district could create an educational component at Oak Meadows that will give area golfers a reasonably priced resource to improve their game.
"Whatever we do, we want to do things that make it more profitable," he said. "We hope to find those answers through this consulting agreement."
The Oak Meadows clubhouse had been used to host banquets, large events and wedding receptions over the years, but a return to that venture is unlikely, officials said. A study commissioned by the district prior to the fire indicated rebuilding the 86-year-old clubhouse and continuing to operate it as a banquet center would cost about $6.5 million.
The clubhouse burned spectacularly following a lightning strike to the roof about 7 p.m. Feb. 26, 2009. More than 100 firefighters responded to the blaze that essentially left the building as a shell. It took more than four hours to extinguish the fire.
Forest preserve police were alerted to a problem at the clubhouse following a report that the burglar alarm had been tripped. The first officer on the scene had to wait about 20 minutes for backup before going in because of department protocol.
The officers didn't locate any signs of a break-in, but as they were leaving one began smelling smoke and called the Addison Fire Department. The call for firefighters came nearly an hour after the lightning strike ignited the blaze.
Arson investigators said the strike sparked a fire in the building's roof structure and the power from the strike tripped the burglar alarm. Because of its age, the roof had actually been built over.
The fire raged between the roof levels for several minutes before opening a hole in the main roof that provided the air flow the blaze needed to spread rapidly.
There were no smoke detectors in the eaves of the roof and that's why they didn't go off until after the building was fully engulfed, Addison fire officials said at the time.