The owner of Club Rio Rancho is threatening to close the course if a deal to sell part of the property for development by Pulte Homes falls through. In Wenham, Mass., the owners of Lakeview GC have a buyer/developer lined up, but the town is considering stepping in to purchase the property itself.
Jhett Browne, owner of Club Rio Rancho, has threatened to close the club in Rio Rancho, N.M., if homeowners block the sale of land once used for nine holes to Pulte Homes, KOB-TV 4 of Albuquerque, N.M. reported.
“If we don’t sell that land, this place closes,” Browne told KOB.
Browne has been battling roughly 200 homeowners who live along the old north nine holes of what was once a 27-hole course, KOB reported. The club closed the north nine holes roughly three years ago and hasn’t maintained them since.
Browne stands to earn roughly $3.2 million by selling the land, which would pay off a seven-figure debt, KOB reported.
“The debt’s got to get satisfied somehow,” he said. “It’s always been said that the debt would be satisfied through the sale of real estate we don’t use.”
Browne told KOB that the club was dilapidated when he bought it in May 2014, and since then he’s incurred debt by renovating much of it, including the remaining 18-hole golf course and clubhouse.
At the same time, he said, he lost roughly $200,000 every month for eight months.
Browne said he’s now only losing about $50,000 monthly, KOB reported, crediting the improvement to having nearly triple the members he had when he bought the club—roughly 300 now, versus less than 100 then.
“Then people say, ‘Then you don’t need to sell the north course,'” he told KOB. “No. I’ve got a debt there that the bank is going to say, ‘We want to get paid back.'”
Browne said he empathizes with the “North Nine” homeowners about the possibility of losing open space, but said the land is not theirs and will have to be sold one way or another.
If the land doesn’t sell, Browne said the club would be forced to close overnight, KOB reported. He believes a closure would have a devastating impact on the entire community, let alone the “North Nine” homeowners.
“There are literally thousands of homes around this golf course that they’re going to devalue,” he said. “And literally, what they don’t seem to realize is by devaluing everything around them, they’re going to devalue themselves—again.”
Browne had offered to sell the north nine holes to homeowners once before, KOB reported, offereing it to them for $2.2 million—$1 million less than Pulte is willing to pay. The homeowners were collectively unable or unwilling to raise enough money, Browne said.
Some of the homeowners have expressed displeasure over the plans to sell the holes to Pulte homes, which would build a subdivision, KOB reported.
“They’re pretty much crammed in there,” homeowner Ron Clements said of Pulte’s initial sketches that were released last summer.
Clements continued to voice his concerns in KOB’s report, but was more optimistic that Pulte may back out of the deal.
KOB’s video report on Club Rio Rancho can be viewed at: http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s4021104.shtml#.Vp-n8xFfnUF
In Wenham, Mass., the Flynn family that has owned Lakeview Golf Course, a nine-hole executive layout, since 1973 is now looking to sell to a buyer/developer, Tambone Atlantic, The Salem News of Beverly, Mass. reported.
But those plans led to the calling of a public hearing by Wenham’s Board of Selectmen, the News reported, to give the community an opportunity to offer its opinion on the town’s right, per state statute, to acquire the 30-acre property, which has existed as a golf course since 1929.
Bill Flynn, a native of Danvers, Mass. who was the head golf professional at Thomson Country Club in North Reading, Mass., purchased the Lakeview land from the Batchelder family for $96,000 in 1973, the News reported. An independent appraisal of the land that was conducted by the Shannon Company in December on behalf of the town reported a fair market evaluation would now be $2.75 million.
Tambone Atlantic and the Flynn family— which also owns the 27-hole Far Corner Golf Course in Boxford, Mass. and Windham Country Club in Windham, N.H.—have agreed with the Town of Wenham on a Host Community Agreement that would limit the scope of the real estate development planned by Tambone Atlantic, the News reported.
That development is one of two options the Town of Wenham now has involving Lakeview GC, the News noted. The town may also choose to purchase the property for municipal use. If it chooses to make the purchase, the town will have to come up with in excess of $2 million, pending community/town meeting approval.
The sale of Lakeview to the town could very well result in the nine-hole course remaining intact under new management, likely in a lease arrangement, or the town could develop the land itself, the News reported.
Except for a small portion of the land, which for 30 years had been part of the adjacent Wenham Golf Club in a land-lease arrangement between the Batchelder family and the Tarr family, which owned Wenham GC, the majority of the land that was used to form Lakeview had been pasture land, the News reported. When the two families could not agree upon a new lease arrangement for 1929, the Batchelders built their own nearby golf course, which has changed little over the past 86 years.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.