THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 23, 1996 TAG: 9601230235
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
A Florida golf course development company wants to pull out of a two-year-old lease agreement with the city that calls for turning 185 acres of vacant rural land along West Neck Creek into championship-caliber links.
The move by Brassie Golf Corp. of Tampa to seek a release was made because the company is having difficulty financing the project, City Manager James K. Spore said.
Brassie's intentions were made known to Spore by a recent letter, and the city manager said the issue is being studied by his staff.
The news comes at the same time that a city-sponsored study on the feasibility of developing more top quality golf courses in Virginia Beach will be placed before the City Council for consideration.
The study - to be presented at today's council meeting - recommends the construction of at least five quality public golf courses, using public and private financing, as a way of generating greater year-round tourist revenues.
The 30-year lease agreement with Brassie was approved by the City Council in June 1994 as a public-private partnership. It allowed the company to develop a state-of-the-art golf course, based on a design sanctioned by Professional Golf Association great Hale Irwin.
Council members agreed to spend an added $130,000 - over and above the $1.5 million it already had spent to acquire the 185-acre tract - to buy eight more acres for the development. The entire tract lies south of the Municipal Center in the Princess Anne Borough.
The eight acres were added to make room for a practice range and a golf school. About 40 large lots on the periphery of the proposed course were to be set aside for single-family residential development, presumably by Brassie.
Spore said news of Brassie's requested pullout has prompted several would-be local developers to try to snag the West Neck Creek development rights for themselves. One of them is lawyer Thomas C. Broyles, a principal in nearby Hell's Point Golf Club at Sandbridge.
Broyles was the chief opponent of the city-sponsored West Neck Creek golf course project when it came before the City Council. He said the subsidized project posed a threat to his private operation and made for unfair competition.
Golf course development plays a big part in the city's long-range tourism and economic development strategy, adopted by the council in recent years. Its aim is to spur business and tax revenues by extending tourism beyond the traditional summer season. Golf course development is included in a 10-year, $93 million Tourism Growth Investment Fund initiative, which includes the $35 million expansion of the Virginia Marine Science Museum and a proposed expansion of the Pavilion Convention Center.
Officials at Brassie Golf Corp. would not return recent phone calls. The company was described in the Sept. 29, 1995, issue of the Tampa Bay Business Journal as ``one of the largest golf course builders and managers in the nation.''
The publication reported that Brassie was trying to raise millions of dollars in private financing to buy and build up to 45 courses, presumably in the Sunbelt, while at the same time trying to pay off $16 million in debt. The debt apparently resulted from the poor performance of several of its golf courses and from other acquisitions and developments dating back to 1990.
Brassie and its Hale Irwin Golf Design Division moved from St. Louis to Tampa in August 1995 after merging with Summit Golf Corp. of Tallahassee, a golf management company also known as Club Operations and Property Management and Resort Golf Clubs International. Brassie was founded in 1988 and built and owned four golf courses at the time of the merger with Summit. Summit was founded in 1982 and managed 44 golf courses and country clubs in the United States and Mexico. ILLUSTRATION: Color Graphic
Site of proposed golf courses
KEYWORDS: GOLF COURSE VIRGINIA BEACH PROPOSED by CNB