Inflatable canopy may be out at Tiger Woods-backed golf arena
TMRW Sports Group confirms it will rebuild in meeting with Palm Beach State College trustees
The backers of a new indoor golf arena rising in Palm Beach Gardens are rethinking their commitment to an inflatable dome after a storm last week ripped the parachute-like canopy to shreds.
Meetings in the next few weeks with architects and engineers will determine if the Tiger Woods-backed TMRW Sports Group changes course and rebuilds with steel or concrete walls instead of an inflatable canopy.
They only have about a year, vowing to tee off the first match in a new professional indoor golf league in January 2025 featuring headliners Woods and co-partner Rory McIlroy.
That launch date was delayed a year after a power outage on the night of Nov. 14 forced the deflation of the dome and severe wind and rain the next day left the downed canopy in tatters.
On Tuesday, TMRW Sports faced its landlord, the trustees of Palm Beach State College.
“As soon as we have a concept of what we think might be the best solution going forward, we’ll share it with you, for sure,” Robin Eletto, chief people and facilities officer for TMRW Sports, told trustees at their monthly meeting at the campus off of PGA Boulevard.
While workers strapped tarps over portions of the exposed structure’s interior, Eletto said insurance brokers toured the devastated site, and architects and engineers are expected Monday to begin planning the path forward.
“If we’re going to do something that is different from an air-inflated dome, it will probably take 10 to 12 months to get it in place,” Eletto said. “There’s a lot to figure out between now and the end of the year.”
She acknowledged that after the canopy deflated, the all-day storm with 50 mph wind gusts caused “catastrophic damage” to the dome.
But she reiterated TMRW Sports’ commitment to rebuilding at the site, a point communicated in a call from TMRW partner Mike McCarley to college President Ava Parker.
“They do remain committed to the project and to the terms of the agreement,” Parker said. “It will take some creativity for us to get there.”
The canopy, first inflated in October, covered roughly 3 acres and reached a height of 75 feet. It would house a 1,500-seat arena-turned-ESPN-studio, where some of the world’s best golfers would compete on a giant-screen simulator for long shots and actual chipping and putting for shots within 50 yards. They would play a 15-hole competition with three mechanically variable greens.
PBSC trustees, who agreed in November 2022 to lease the 10-acre site to the startup golf league for five years with two five-year options, were worried that the promised payoff for the college, such as jobs, internships and training opportunities for students, would not be fulfilled.
Trustee Wendy Sartory Link said she was “concerned about getting the college the benefits that we thought we were getting when we thought we would have a facility for this year.”
Speaking events planned for the dome would have to be rescheduled and an attorney for the college said details would have to be worked out in negotiations.
Parker reminded Eletto that whatever is built must be removable after five years in case the lease is not extended. Renewals under the lease are under the control of TMRW Sports, not the college.
A PBSC report put the project’s overall construction cost at $11 million before the canopy tore.
Although TMRW Sports is paying no rent, it made a $1 million donation to the Foundation for Palm Beach State College in February, when it broke ground at a ceremony featuring Woods, McIlroy and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Instead of rent, the lease calls for access to events for the college, use of the facility, training opportunities and mandatory mentions of the community college on air and in social media.
“We’re here to entertain and excite people and hopefully 2 million people will be watching us,” TMRW Sports’ then-executive Tom Veit said at the November 2022 meeting in which the trustees approved the lease.