Panel OKs changes for golf entertainment site

Details are emerging on the massive golf entertain- ment facility planned for the Franklin Gateway area.

The Marietta City Council approved in February selling 17 acres to Drive Shack for $9.5 million.

The judicial/legislative committee approved at its Tuesday meeting the variances Drive Shack is asking for, said city spokeswoman Lindsey Wiles. The item is

set to go before the entire council at its April 11 meeting.

Dr ive Shack, publicly traded under the ticker sym-

bol DS on the New York Stock Exchange, is in the process of overhauling its business from being a traditional golf course operator to opening

and managing golf entertainment-type facilities akin to rival Topgolf.

The variances the company is asking for are spelled out in a March 19 letter from an attorney handling Drive Shack’s application to build.

They span from allowing poles of up to 160 feet to support nets for driving range nets to disrupting the 50-foot buffer between the building and the Twin Brooks Town- home community.

The letter also reveals that the indoor/outdoor facility of 64,000 square feet will have 96 hitting bays on three floors.

Building it will make for between 150 to 200 con- the struction ity permanent spaces There will for create will jobs, employees jobs. be and hundreds 414 parking facil- and of customers. Monday Tentatively, through it will Sunday be open with proposed hours of 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. The address will be 849 Franklin Gateway — the property where it will be located was purchased by the city through the 2013 redevelopment bond.

The city has put its back into billing the area as a neighborhood set for a large transformation.

Atlanta United opened a high-tech training facility there in April and Ikea announced in December that it chose the area as the site of its second metro Atlanta location.

Drive Shack currently doesn’t have an open facility.

Its first, in Orlando, was set to open at the end of March.

There’s currently no Top- golf in Cobb County.

Golf as a sport has generally seen declining play of 18-hole rounds over the last several years.

Drive Shack said it lost $42.2 million in 2017, compared to a profit a year earlier of $77.3 million. The company reported revenue of $292.6 million last year, down about 2 percent from $298.9 million in 2016.