Mini golf and go-carts were planned at this SLO County park. Are they still coming?
A few years ago, San Luis Obispo County Parks announced plans for some ambitious upgrades at El Chorro Regional Park that included a go-cart race track, a Toptracer driving range and a mini golf course.
But only one of those features became a reality, and plans have since changed.
At least for now, go-carts and mini golf are out, and zip lines, upscale cabins and a bike track are in.
Also planned is a redesign of the entrance that will take visitors deeper into the park and past the clubhouse so they will know all of what’s available there.
The 720-acre park, located along Highway 1 across from Cuesta College, offers a number of recreation opportunities, including softball fields, a dog park, hiking trails, campgrounds, the Dairy Creek Golf Course and the SLO Botanical Garden.
County Parks builds driving range, halts mini golf and go-carts
In 2021, county parks opened the Swing Time driving range, which allows players to track the flight of their shots and study swing performance data using Toptracer technology, according to County Parks director Tanya Richardson.
The driving range replaced a handful of the nine holes Dairy Creek Golf Course closed during a water shortage, County Parks assistant director Shaun Cooper said.
Prior to 2014, the golf course had 18 holes that required about 255 acre-feet of water per year, he said.
Along with the rest of the park, the course is irrigated by recycled water from the California Men’s Colony.
When the prison reduced its inmate population, the park saw its water allocation fall — so it closed nine holes and reduced its irrigated water intake to 180 acre-feet in May 2018, Cooper said.
Building the driving range cost $926,083, with funding from Cal Poly, the County Parks Reserve Fund and the Golf Enterprise Fund, he said.
Along with the driving range, the county planned to build a mini golf course and an 800-foot go-cart race track to replace lost revenue from the golf course, Cooper said, while also paying down the county’s debt service from building the course.
The county originally designated $584,297 to fund the mini golf and go-cart project but redirected the funding when the driving range proved to be financially successful enough to cover the debt payments on its own.
According to Cooper, the driving range generates about $755,000 per year, which is more than enough money to pay the annual $434,498 debt service.
“It was wildly successful,” Cooper said. “It’s been generating enough revenue to pay off our debt service.”
So instead of building additional revenue-generating attractions, the county redirected the mini golf and go-kart funding to building a bike course and realigning El Chorro Park Road, he said. If new funding becomes available, however, the county will resume the project, he said.
Right now, the park doesn’t have a clear entry point, so visitors can miss some of the attractions it offers.
“We’d like to route everybody up to to the clubhouse,” he said. “We want everybody to kind of go to a main, focal entry point. That way they’ll know what’s available in the park.”
The county also plans to add “high-end cabins” and zip-lining to the park, Richardson said. Those projects should be completed by next summer, she said.
“It’s a really nice amenity and beautiful park,” Richardson said.
This story was originally published October 22, 2023 at 10:00 AM.
