(Photo by Betsy Calvert/The Daily Sun North Port)
The 18-hole course is part of the Bobcat Trail community in North Port, Fla., and residents would prefer to see it put up for auction, so the Community Development District (CDD) could buy it and have a management company run it. But owner Rich Smith, who has been sued for a variety of payment disputes, wants to sell the property so more single-family homes could be built. The chairman of the CDD called the asking price “outrageous” and “almost silly.”
Residents of the Bobcat Trail community in North Port, Fla. have learned that their beloved but failed golf course is up for sale for $13 million, The Daily Sun North Port reported.
The intent of Rich Smith, the owner of the Charlotte Harbor National Golf Club at Bobcat Trail to sell the property for single-family homes instead of as a golf course is upsetting to many, The Daily Sun reported.
“Nobody in here would like to see this happen,” Paul Fisher, a resident and chairman of the Community Development District (CDD), told The Daily Sun.
The 18-hole golf course, which was designed by Bob Tway and Lee Singletary and opened in 1998, has been closed since August 2021, with Smith saying repeatedly that it would open soon, The Daily Sunreported.
But A claim that the site can be developed with 320 single-family homes is likely four times more than permissible, another CDD supervisor, Dick Burke told The Daily Sun. Burke called Smith’s asking price “almost silly.”
“That’s just an outrageous number,” Burke said. “[But] I’m not surprised it’s for sale. The guy has to do something.”
Construction contractors already surveyed the 113-acre site this summer for residential potential, Burke told The Daily Sun. They determined that there was space for only 80 to 90 single-family homes, he said, and that the cost of extending water and sewer lines would make the project prohibitively expensive.
The Bobcat Trail community wants the golf course restored, but that will take from between $2 million and $4 million, Burke estimated. An asking price of between $2 million and $3 million would be realistic for that, he added.
The CDD hopes the golf course will go up for auction if Smith cannot pay his debts, with the CDD then buying it and having a golf management company run the course.
But if it were to go residential, Burke said, the community would easily survive and not lose many current residents, The Daily Sun reported.
“Bobcat Trail is a great place to live, golf course or not,” he said. “I wouldn’t leave if some more homes were coming in here. It’s a friendly community. People help each other.”
The Bobcat Trail community, including the golf course, was developed using the restrictions set by the city in a 2003 development order, a member of the North Port zoning staff told The Daily Sun.
The staff member could not provide an analysis, however, of whether the rules for that site would prohibit a dramatic expansion of homes. A request for that information from the city clerk’s office was also not answered.
Just west of Bobcat Trail is another golf course that was closed and is to be redeveloped as a mixed-use project with 500 homes and 400 assisted-living units, The Daily Sun reported.
At 209 acres, the Sabal Trace Golf Course is much larger than the Charlotte Harbor property, The Daily Sunreported.. It was a golf course much earlier, in the 1970s, and does not appear to be part of a community development district. Before it closed in 2015, it was zoned commercial recreational.
The North Port City Commission approved the zone change to a mixed-use development in 2020, The Daily Sun reported.
The Daily Sun reported in October 2021 that locals have frequently accused Smith of misleading statements, including telling a bankruptcy court judge earlier this year his wife was not working at the golf course, when she was listed as General Manager. Ellen Smith served time in jail two decades ago in Michigan for embezzlement from another business, The Daily Sun reported.
Smith has accumulated a large number of civil court cases with companies demanding payments, The Daily Sun reported. He owes $1.3 million to 13 Bobcat households that helped him buy the course in 2017.
He was delinquent for two years of property taxes, The Daily Sun reported, until a lawsuit from one of the residents prompted Smith to pay up to avoid mortgage problems.
A lawsuit by a golf apparel company was resolved in recent weeks for $18,000, The Daily Sun reported, on the eve of a deposition in which Smith was ordered to provide several years’ worth of financial records.
“It seems when things start getting really dark, someone kicks in cash to keep it floating,” Burke said of the golf course debts, The Daily Sun reported.
The Daily Sun reported that it reached out by phone to Smith, but he said through his lawyer that he will not comment. A real estate agent also did not return a call for comment.
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