Developers see green in golf ’s decline
Some Central Florida developers are ramping up plans to carve up fairways, greens and clubhouses so new houses and apartments can be built where golf carts once roamed.
“If you were buying a house in 2015 on a golf course, buyer beware,” said Jim Hall, planning director at VHB Miller Sellen. He won approval this month for 1,200 houses, apartments and townhomes on the old Marriott Grande Pines golf course off International Drive.
Sagging interest in the sport has forced more than 1,400 closings across the state since 2000. And now, developers’ demand for property near jobs, schools, shops and transportation is driving a push to redevelop Central Florida’s old courses.
Longwood
At northwest Seminole County’s old Sabal Point golf course, which has been closed almost a decade, developers have renewed efforts to build apartments.
Seminole County is considering a revised proposal from Kyle Riva of Alexander Investments to build 286 units on part of the 100-acre Sabal Point course in the Longwood area. Riva said his group “made progress” with the community’s four homeowner associations during the summer and has renewed efforts to win development approvals from the county.
“Our proposal is that we’re going to develop about 24 acres, and the rest of the land we’re giving back to homeowners as open-space park and also giving prepaid dues to the homeowner association for maintenance of the property,” Riva said recently.
He also owns a 44-acre former municipal course in Clearwater and said the redevelopment there seems smoother because fairways lie next to one another instead of being surrounded by homeowners.
Sagging interest in the sport has forced more than 1,400 closings across the state since 2000.
Oviedo
After facing opposition last year to their plans for redeveloping the Twin Rivers Golf Club in Oviedo, owners of the property recently revised their proposal and again are asking for approvals from the city.
Plans for townhomes have been dropped. New plans call for relocation of the clubhouse and University of Central Florida practice facilities as well as a redesign of the course with shorter fairways to make room for construction of 264 single-family houses. The 18-hole, par-72 routing would be downsized to a par 65. About five houses would get a view of homes instead of the clubhouse, and four or five more would lose their view of the course to the new clubhouse.
Owners have also proposed giving the course to the city of Oviedo as part of the development deal, although city officials say nothing along those lines has been submitted.
The owners say Twin Rivers could stand as a model for golf-course redevelopment.
“In my opinion what we submitted is a blueprint for how they should be redeveloped,” said American Builders Supply Inc. Chairman Chad Barton. He and Bob Dello Russo, founder of Del-Air Inc., own Twin Rivers and four other courses. They sold a course to the city of Casselberry for $2.2 million.
Barton said the golf operation is no longer viable, with only about a dozen members; the course also is open to public play. It had twice been foreclosed on before his group bought it. If city commissioners oppose the plans, he said his group is likely to seek relief through the courts.
At least some homeowners along the course are likely to object to the owners’ new plans.
“We’re trying to find some way to keep it as a golf course,” said Rick Beard, who lives on the 16th fairway and said he plays the course weekly.
It’s a shame, Beard added, when buyers can “pick up something on the courthouse steps, run it in the ground and say they can’t make a go of it.”
South Orange
The old Marriott Grande Pines course off International Drive near Sea-World is closest to being repurposed. The Orange County Commission approved plans for about 1,200 houses, townhomes and apartments there earlier this month.
Surrounded by time shares instead of homeowners, the golf course drew relatively few fans and supporters during public hearings.
The New Jersey-based group Ridgewood Partners is negotiating with development partners for three apartment projects at the 100-acre-plus property.
Hall, who helped win approvals on the project, said that and others in the mix are just the start of what is likely to be a long trend of developing courses that were built primarily to help sell houses.
“The residential ones were just a marketing play anyway,” he said.