Released easement bolsters Concession's shot at a major golf tourney

Manatee County has taken another step to help The Concession Golf Club attract PGA Tour events, and even Majors such as the PGA Championship and the Senior PGA Championship. 

Manatee County Commissioners released a conservation easement on approximately 3-acres of wetland in a 4-3 vote May 6 so The Concession Golf Club can make the necessary upgrades that the PGA Championship requires of host facilities. 

Elliott Falcione, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau for Manatee County, said hosting a PGA Championship could generate $250 million or more in economic impact.

Falcione's estimate didn't just include the potential one-year impact on the area, but the “domino effect” such major sporting events would have on the surrounding area. According to third-party research, 74% of sports visitors are likely to return for a vacation within one year. 

The one-year impact also is considerable. Louisville Tourism estimated an $80 million impact to the Louisville, Kentucky area in 2024 while the Greater Rochester Enterprise estimated a $190 million impact to the Rochester, New York area in 2023 during the last two PGA Championships.

While Manatee County is courting the PGA Championship to the area, Falcione said the county and The Concession are close to finalizing a three-tournament deal to host the Senior PGA Championship starting in April 2026.

His "conservative" estimate is that each of those events will generate anywhere from $20 million to $50 million in economic impact. 

“(The Senior PGA Championship) will give us more experience to showcase The Concession and the ability for our region to host that kind of caliber event for the PGA to consider a PGA Championship in 2031 or 2032, give or take,” Falcione said. 

To accommodate the PGA, The Concession needs an ingress and egress for VIPs to be dropped off at the front door of the clubhouse, which is the immediate plan for the tract where the easement was lifted.

Falcione said the rest of the plan will come together after a trip to the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland May 22-25 for the 2025 Senior PGA Championship. 

“We don’t know anything more than that (the club needs an ingress and egress), but it’s as simple as that,” he said. “The area will be beautified to match the brand elements and the landscape of The Concession.” 

Commission Chair George Kruse called the plan “one step removed from a conservation easement” because the area will be covered in shell and remain pervious.

The easement

While commissioners Bob McCann, Carol Felts and Jason Bearden voted against the measure, the request was somewhat of a formality. 

By the time The Concession sought approval from the commission May 6, it had already gained approval from the state. 

“This is one of those areas where the county used to have conservation easements over all wetlands and wetland buffer areas,” said Kara Koenig, Environmental Section Planning Manager for Manatee County. “Now, we can only require conservation easements for wetland mitigation areas.”

A wetland is a naturally water-saturated area, whereas a wetland mitigation area is a wetland that was either created or restored to compensate for man-made impacts to natural wetlands. 

Koenig told commissioners that The Concession will offset its environmental impact in two ways. 

First, 2.94 mitigation credits of forested freshwater wetlands were purchased within the same watershed. Second, the Land Development Code requires that every tree removed from outside that wetland area has to be replaced.

McCann’s argument against releasing the easement was that some residents of The Concession contacted him and said they don’t want it released. 

Kruse mentioned complaints, too, but no residents were in attendance to speak for themselves at the meeting. Kruse voted in favor of releasing the easement because he said it will benefit the entire county.

Felts had stormwater concerns but mainly argued that the release of the easement was misplaced by being on the consent agenda. She wanted to delay the vote, so it could come back as a discussion item on the agenda instead. 

Had McCann not pulled the item from the consent agenda, it would have been lumped in with a list of other items being given a blanket approval with no discussion at all.

When an item is pulled, it allows for an on-the-spot discussion, but citizens aren’t given public notice ahead of time so they can join the conversation. 

“Don’t hide it in the consent agenda,” Felts said. “Give people the confidence that we thought this through.”

Brian Weimann, general manager of The Concession Golf Club, did not return a call for comment.