Construction of Clubhouse

Ours was already built when I moved in, but if you're thinking of doing this, you might consider things like:

Where will it be located - the area will need to include parking

Will this be a massive meeting room only, or will you have several rooms, a kitchen, a fitness center, etc.?
If this will be built near the swimming pool (if you have one), will the building have a shower room? will people be able to enter the clubhouse through the pool?

How big do you want this clubhouse to be? By the way, you also need to plan for making the building handicapped accessible, like wheelchair ramps and bathroom stalls that can accommodate a wheelchair.

You'll also need to get an architect to design the building, get assorted permits to build it, obtain bids from various contractors and review all of them (and do your due diligence in checking THEIR history). There may also be an issue with zoning and you'll have to go through that process, whatever it is.

You still have to find the money to pay for all of this. Depending on your community's finances, that may or may not require a loan and/or special assessment. If you get a loan, the assessments will have to be adjusted to pay for it along with regular expenses and funding reserves. Speaking of reserves the new building will need to be included in future studies so you'll have the money for major expenses and repairs like roofing, replacing the furnace, etc. The special assessment will likely require homeowner approval, which can be a saga in itself.

As far as the developer goes, it usually knows what type of clubhouse will be built and the homeowners may or may not have much to do with its features. After it's built and the community is turned over to the homeowners, they need to prepare the budget to cover routine maintenance and set some rules, such as how early and late an activity can start and end, who cleans up, collecting deposits, if delinquent homeowners will be able to rent it, etc., etc.

So that's just my take and I'm sure there are others who might chime in. Consider it a massive project that may take at least a year to get all the planning and contractor selection done (your association attorney needs to be in on this to review the contracts before they're signed). When the construction starts, there will be noise and possible disruption in traffic so you'll have to prepare for that and tell the homeowners to prepare as well. Hope this helps!

Yes our Declaration does mention a clubhouse and the Master Plan to our subdivision also includes a clubhouse, playground, and community park. Our subdivision is 15 years old with eight phases. The housing market fell out when Phases 1-2 were being built. Phase 3 was built in two sections over the next 10 years and then Phase 4 was just built this past year. Now the original developer is selling the remaining phases to a new developer. We've had a good line of communication so far but he's made clear that he does not want to be involved in building a clubhouse.

I realize that's quite rare but none the less, that's the situation we're in. The developer promised a pool for years as well and kept moving it around on the Master Plan until the city finally made him build a pool before allowing him to plat out Phase 4. So there is a precedent there for the city to force the developers hand. That being said, if he and the original developer set aside funds to give to the association to go towards building the clubhouse, I think that could be an agreeable compromise to keep things moving without getting the city involved.

ChadH3, thank you for the explanation. Shelia's right of course that this is a lot of money. She does have some particular experience with major amenities which I think is especially interesting: Her HOA, through a vote over a year+ to amend the Declaration, got rid of a swimming pool. Which I too would have supported, on account of seeing how little pools are used and how expensive they are, with things seemingly always breaking.

But I am thinking about this clubhouse you and possibly others want. In my experience, clubhouses are well-used. In the past I have thrown a few gatherings in the HOA/condo clubhouse because my place was too small (or okay, the clean-up felt like less of a burden). Clubhouses are no where near fraught with the maintenance requirements that a pool is. In other words, I think that, if the covenants require it, I would support paying a bit more to build and maintain it. I do think a clubhouse adds to property value. Make sure it has a little kitchen and fridge

Shelia, AugustinD, & Kelly, Thank you very much for the feedback!

While we're still at least probably two years from this even being constructed the new developer is wanting to get everything squared away now before he starts on his first phase, which I don't blame him one bit. It's definitely worth bringing up for discussion at our annual meeting to get a pulse of where the membership at large stands on this. We've definitely seen how expensive the pool is but it's also been quite popular and while home sizes vary in our subdivision (some over 3,500 square feet) the area this clubhouse would go is the section with houses between 1,500-2,200 square feet that could probably greatly benefit from a clubhouse for parties and events. We already have a good bit of homeowners rent out the pool for events now.

Yeah, we'll see if it keeps up. We have the pool closed right now due to COVID-19 but actually keep the pool open year round. I think some of the popularity last year came from people being promised a pool for years and then finally having it as a reality. It's nice to have although it created a lot of headaches for us board members last year!

A clubhouse is a fairly rare amenity for subdivisions in our area so I feel like it would be a quality addition but making sure a majority are on board with it is a great point. No since in fighting a battle if most don't care!

Theoretically, the new developer who has purchased the future phases is not required to annex the new phases into the HOA. It's mutually beneficial for him to do so as they would then have access to our current amenities and common areas and we would get more revenue from assessments on those new lots to provide greater benefit to all homeowners. Legally it might be tricky for him to start an additional HOA but hopefully that's not something we have to worry about!

Our original declaration did grant the developer the right to change covenants for new phases annexed into the HOA but we changed that in our recent covenant amendments. We still granted them the original right to annex and merge into the HOA without a vote but the current covenants apply as written and only if the annexation is recorded before construction of the first house in the phase commences. If they were to build homes and then request to join the HOA, it would have to go to a total association vote.