The Town of Franklin may have finally settled on a use for the Whitmire Property following a request for the installation of a new disc golf course.
At the Feb. 1 town council meeting, Jacob Reiche and Kyle Ledford of the Franklin Disc Golf Club pitched the idea for a new disc golf course on the property. After discussing the idea with town manager Summer Woodard, the club believes that the course would be simple and cost-efficient to set up and take down, so the town could still repurpose the property without much trouble at a later date if necessary. In the meantime, though, it would offer town residents a new recreational space and extract some value from the town’s 16-year-old investment.
“The Whitmire property, as we know, has been sitting there waiting to have something done with it,” Reiche said. “It would be a great use for the property. It is non-invasive, it’s temporary if need be, and if at any time the council decides the Whitmire property would be a good use for something else, by all means, we can take up the course and remove it pretty easily.”
Woodard said that the project would likely cost the town about $8,000, but there may be paths to discounts from that amount. The town already maintains the property, so that expense would go unchanged by the course. There’s more than enough money budgeted for Pickin’ on the Square that could be repurposed toward installing the course because of COVID-19’s likely impact on the size of this year’s Pickin’ events, Woodard said.
“If you did take the $8,000 from Pickin’ on the Square, that would leave you $15,000 in that line item, which is more than enough even if things do return to semi-normal,” Woodard said. “If Pickin’ started back Memorial Day weekend, that’s more than enough in the Pickin’ budget.”
The council members agreed that the property had gone unused for too long. Furthermore, they felt that the introduction of the course could be a good opportunity to spark further interest in outdoor recreation in the town. The course would take up a small enough space on the property that it could still house more facilities like a bike track or an amphitheater in the future. The disc golf course might get more people interested.
“I envision this as the start of it being more than just a disc golf course,” council member David Culpepper said. “I think it’s a hole in one.”
Mindful that more residents may want to weigh in on uses for the property, the council decided to take a month to examine the matter further.
“Unless there’s a pressing need, and in this case there’s not since it’s February and we’re meeting on March 1, I don’t know that we need to make a decision tonight,” council member Joe Collins said.
The town council will discuss the possibility of installing a disc golf course on the Whitmire property further at its next monthly meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, March 1.