Bill Barnard
Summer is behind us and the fall weather is a welcome change. We are starting to see a little more activity as people are getting back into town. This month, I wanted to continue to update you on the various major projects we have in progress.
Tuscany Falls West Golf Course Grass Replacement
The Tuscany Falls West re-grassing project is complete but we are still waiting for the new grass to establish. We had some setbacks over the summer months with the heat of July and re-sprigging of grass in August. We were hoping to be open by the time we overseeded the other golf courses, but we need a little more time and we still have good growing weather for the next few weeks. While the opening date has yet to be determined, we expect that we will be able to open sometime in November. We are evaluating conditions weekly and Joe Miller, Tuscany Falls Golf Superintendent, continues to work hard to get the grass ready for play to get us through the winter months on new turf.
Street Light Replacement
Street light replacement is also completed and was finished at the end of September. All of the old lights have been replaced with new LED heads, and all of the street lights have smart nodes attached. In total about 1,275 lights were touched. There are 40 lights that were replaced but have no power going to the pole from APS. APS has been notified and has 21 days to evaluate and repair. In some cases, they may have to schedule repair as they may need to pull new wire, as was the case on North Sarival about a month ago. If you notice a light that is not functioning, please let us know and we will make sure that APS is notified. We will now start working with the new software to set some dimming schedules in order to take maximum advantage of the electric savings of the new LED lights. By the end of the month, we should have good control of our lights and they should all be functioning.
Toscana’s Restaurant Renovation
The restaurant renovation is underway. PWI, our construction company, mobilized in mid-September and has started demo work in the restaurant. We have started weekly meetings with their general contractor and are monitoring progress. There isn’t much to update, other than they are tearing out windows, walls, and fixtures to get ready to start putting up the new walls and shoring up the structure. We will continue to update as we go along. The Tiny Tavern passed inspection and had a soft opening for a few days this past week. Overall, it was received well. It will be closed while the Tuscany golf courses are closed for overseed, but will reopen when the East course reopens on Oct. 30. It was good to get a few days under our belt to hear comments and understand how it will operate. We appreciate the feedback and will make some improvements as we go forward. We hope this will be a good option for some quick food and drinks for golfers and the community. Please continue to check the Cheers! newsletter or the website for up-to-date Food and Beverage information.
Overseeding
Overseeding of the common area turf has been completed. The dog park and Sunrise Park were completed first and reopened Oct. 9. The clubhouse yards and the rest of the common turf areas are still establishing and are in different stages of growth but by the end of the month, all of the rye grass should be in good shape. Eagle’s Nest and Tuscany Falls East are also going through their overseed period. Eagle’s Nest started last week and Tuscany Falls East started this week. Each course will be closed for three weeks to establish the new grass and will be cart-path-only when they open. Again, by the end of the month, those two golf courses should be in good shape with new winter grass. As I mentioned above, we are still delayed on opening the Tuscany Falls West golf course, which will not be overseeded this winter and are still establishing the Bermuda grass that was installed this summer.
Roadwork
All of our major roadwork for this year has been completed. The last thing left to do is to stripe the Tuscany roads and parking lot with new paint. This will happen at the end of the month and should not be disruptive to the community. No roads will need to be closed and they will do sections of the parking lot at Tuscany Falls over a three-day period. The schedule will be announced on the website. We appreciate your patience while this important work is getting done as we are trying to protect and preserve our largest asset here at PebbleCreek, the roads.
And finally, I did want to update you on two projects being done by external sources that impact our community:
CenturyLink/Quantum Fiber Upgrades
CenturyLink/Quantum Fiber are still on property working on upgrades to their underground fiber. They have added more crews in an effort to complete the project faster. They have completed permanent patch repairs to the roads at Tuscany and should be done on that side of the property. They have moved over to Eagle’s Nest to start finalizing asphalt patching and continue to pull fiber in some areas. A reminder that the original patches are just temporary to fill the holes until permanent patches can be installed. CenturyLink has established a Construction Hotline at 602-357-5502 to field any questions or concerns that our residents may have. We will continue to update on progress and will be happy when this project is completed.
Pickleball Courts
RCI is constructing the new pickleball courts on the north side of the development. The latest update from RCI representatives at our last board meeting is that they are more than 50% done with the project and the estimated date of completion is mid-December 2023. They are still running into some supply chain issues but the project is moving closer to completion. We will keep the community updated on the project at our monthly HOA/Zoom meetings.
It’s been a long summer and we’ve gotten a lot accomplished with still a few more things to complete before we hit the busy season. We are looking forward to having everyone back this winter and hope everyone will enjoy the improvements that we have made and are continuing to make.
Report is as of Oct. 10, 2023, due to newspaper submission deadline.