The public will have a chance to weigh in on the Beaver Meadow Golf Course clubhouse, as well as other major upcoming projects, at the City Council’s budget workshop Thursday evening.

Presented as part of City Manager Tom Aspell’s proposed city budget, a plan is now on the table for a new — but smaller — clubhouse. The 6,000-square-foot floor plan would bring the clubhouse price tag down from around $8 million to around $6 million. 

Aspell said the plan would be financed largely by course earnings, reserve money and some donations, adding only a few dollars a year to the tax bill of the average Concord home.

Not much else is known about this new plan: Aspell has declined to provide additional information to the Monitor beyond stating, through an email from his assistant, that more details will be made available at the Thursday meeting. The plan was first presented to city councilors a week ago.

The course would set aside money to pay off the debt on a proposed clubhouse, according to Aspell’s plan and budget documents, but the building would still be covered by a taxpayer bond. That means taxpayers would still be on the hook for the cost of the clubhouse if the course were ever unable to make reimbursement payments, if donations don’t come in as expected or if city leaders change their minds down the road about how the building should be paid for.

A timeline of the project outlines changes to its designs since December 2023, when overwhelming opposition from residents led city leaders to send engineers back to the drawing board.

Thursday’s capital project discussion begins at 5:30 p.m. in City Council chambers and will conclude with public comment. City leaders can make changes to the budget as workshops move along or as late as June 5, just before they vote on the full budget.

Other capital projects currently laid out in the budget for the coming year are:

■A skate park at Kiwanis Riverfront Park receiving no city money. The park will be paid for by a federal grant secured with city help and by $500,000 in fundraising;

■Finalized designs for Memorial Field costing $1.5 million, which would be split evenly by the city and school district;

■ The final phase of LED streetlight installation costing $1.2 million. Last year, city electricity costs went down $258,000 or 17.3%, which Aspell noted was largely due to LED installation.

■A new police station estimated at $38.5 million funded solely through taxes. This project would be up for separate approval later this year but would still factor into the 2026 budget.

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.