The Canton, Ohio club received a letter from its owner, CDF Holdings, last week, indicating that golf course operations would cease as of October 31, two months earlier than expected. Local developers signed a purchase agreement to buy the golf course property along with 10 adjoining acres at an undisclosed price earlier this year, and plan to submit a zoning change request based on residents’ feedback.
The Edgewood Golf Club in Canton, Ohio will close for good at the end of October, two months earlier than expected, the Canton (Ohio) Repository reported.
Manager Michael Siefke said he received a letter from the golf course property’s owner CDF Holdings last week informing him that golf course operations would cease as of October 31, the Repository reported.
“I know the public is probably not going to be too happy about it, but our hands are tied. There’s really nothing we can do,” Siefke said.
CDF President Brad Dupray declined to give Siefke a reason why the closing was being moved ahead two months. The Repository could not reach Dupray for comment.
Six full-time golf course employees, including Siefke, and seven part-time workers, will lose their jobs. It’s not clear whether 65 golfers who had bought memberships through December 31 will receive refunds as the course had already spent the membership fees on course operations and capital costs, Siefke said.
First Christian Church bought the 114-acre, 18-hole golf course in 2002 for $5.1 million. It built a church campus on the property, which opened in 2006, leaving 70 remaining acres for a nine-hole course. Due to financial problems, the church restructured its mortgage into a lease with the Church Development Fund, which controls CDF Holdings, and turned over ownership of its church complex and the golf course to CDF at the end of 2012, the Repository reported.
Earlier this year, local developers Bob DeHoff and Bill Lemmon signed a purchase agreement to buy the golf course property from CDF along with 10 adjoining acres at an undisclosed price. The developers wanted to build hundreds of residential units—apartments, villas and single-family homes—along with a senior assisted living facility on the property, the Repository reported.
But earlier this month the developers withdrew their zone change request after nearby residents organized opposition. The Township Zoning Commission unanimously recommended rejection of the change, and the township trustees said they would have opposed it, the Repository reported.
DeHoff Development’s senior director of commercial development, Beth Borda, said the developers never requested moving up the golf course’s closing date. Whether it closed in December or October wouldn’t affect their development plans, she said, and the purchase is not expected to close before the end of October. Lemmon and DeHoff plan to resubmit a zoning change request based on residents’ feedback, the Repository reported.
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