Boca gets public input on golf course

City wants links to be ‘world class’

Fore! A 212-acre golf course is on its way toward being reopened in Boca Raton — with a designer for the first time gathering the community’s ideas on how to make it a “world-class” destination.

A hearing on Tuesday served as Round One for the public to help bring the “thwack” sound back to the former Ocean Breeze, a deteriorating golf course at 5800 NW Second Ave. It has been closed since 2016.

Wayne Branthwaite, with Nick Price Golf Course Design, said he’s just beginning to evaluate what’s feasible. He’s part of the team hired to revitalize the course. Another public hearing on the course’s design will be Aug. 20.

“It will be a good month before we understand all the implications,” Branthwaite said.

According to Art Koski, interim director for the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District, the course designer initially suggested:

Turning the golf course on the west side of Second

Avenue into an 18-hole championship course.

Building a short course of nine holes, a learning center and practice center, all on the east side of Second Avenue.

A few years ago, a proposal had emerged to build homes on the greens.

But the city loaned the beach and park district the $21 million to buy it and develop it into a public course earlier this year. It’s an uncommon move, given that many public and private golf courses have closed across Florida because of waning interest.

If all goes as planned, the new greens will be open and ready for play a year from now, said Robert Rollins Jr., a beach and park district commissioner. Permits to tear down the existing hotel and clubhouse on the property are currently underway at City Hall, he said.

About 50 people attended Tuesday’s hearing, offering opinions for and against splitting the property into distinct courses.

Robert DuKate, who lives near the golf course at the adjacent condo complex, said that the beach and park district’s feasibility study showed the course would be more practical if it’s left a 27-hole course. He cited the county-owned Osprey Point’s success as evidence a 27-hole course would be a good idea: Osprey Point has drawn so many golfers it remains profitable.

“We have a beautiful 18-hole course at Red Reef Park, and it loses about $350,000 a year,” he said.

Another speaker urged park district officials to add a jogging path around the facility. Another Boca resident said the district should go with an 18-hole course, along with the other attractions on the east side.

“We really need to do something different,” Joel Bowie said, citing the failure of Ocean Breeze.

Whatever the final design, it’s going attract players near and far, according to the district’s leaders. A hotel and a new clubhouse are among the possibilities on the property. “It’s going to be world class,” Koski said.