The waste management company that serves the Columbus metropolitan area acquired The Phoenix Golf Links in Grove City, Ohio last year, but has been unable to find a management firm to operate it. The site has a methane gas leak that would cost $1.8 million to repair, in addition to nearly $300,000 a year for upkeep and maintenance.
The Phoenix Golf Links in Grove City, Ohio will not rise again, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported.
The agency that runs the landfill for Franklin County, Ohio has decided to permanently shutter the golf course located in Jackson Township, south of Columbus, that features views of the Columbus skyline, the Dispatch reported.
Phoenix Golf Links became the property of the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) at the beginning of 2014 in a settlement with its former owners, the Dispatch reported. Built atop a closed county landfill that SWACO inherited in 1989, the course was designed to protect the earthen cap over the landfill while creating a public amenity and raising money for the agency.
But years after it opened, it was discovered that methane gas was leaking from a gas-collection system under the course. Both SWACO and the company running the golf course said the other was responsible for fixing the problem, which landed the matter in court, the Dispatch reported.
The sides settled in January 2014, with the former golf course managers receiving a little more than $2.3 million to buy out their 30-year lease, and SWACO receiving control of the property and course.
The Authority’s management and leadership, after realizing they had no business trying to operate a golf course, then tried twice, unsuccessfully, to find a management company to run it, as C&RB reported in September 2014 (http://clubandresortbusiness.com/2014/09/30/solid-waste-authority-seeks-management-phoenix-golf-links/)
“While many companies expressed interest in operating the course, the financial terms to do so were not acceptable to SWACO,” Ty Marsh, the agency’s Executive Director, wrote in an e-mail to Board members in March, the Dispatch reported. “As a result, the course will close permanently.”
The course suffered from the same decline in golfers and rounds played that is hurting courses across the country, Marsh wrote. Two other courses in Franklin County have also closed this year, he noted.
On the plus side for SWACO, the Dispatch reported, it should now be cheaper for the agency to fix problems with the methane-gas-collection system under the course, because it no longer has to work around the golf course’s schedule.
Carol Ann Phillips, SWACO’s Chief Financial Officer, has said that agency will have to spend about $290,000 a year on routine upkeep and maintenance to the system to meet safety and environmental standards, the Dispatch reported.
Previously, Phillips had predicted that repairs to the system would require about $1.8 million on top of the yearly upkeep, the Dispatch reported.
SWACO will eventually fill in the course’s sand bunkers, take out the cart paths and level the slopes to provide for easier maintenance and mowing of the property and to better protect the landfill cap, Marsh wrote in his e-mail to the Board.
“Other potential uses for the land will be explored at a later date,” he added.
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