Article Courtesy of The Herald-Tribune

By John Hielscher

Published November 5, 2014

       
SARASOTA - The Forest Lakes golf course, one of the region's most glaring casualties of the Great Recession, might be coming back to life.

A developer plans to revive the blighted 18-hole course, build a new clubhouse and sell a chunk of land for additional residences.

Prominent Canadian homebuilder Mattamy Homes, which intends to build up to 200 villas and townhomes on a 24-acre parcel on the east side of Beneva Road, is a key player in the plan.

 

"The initial thing that drew us to the property is the location," said Ed Suchora, Mattamy's Tampa/Sarasota division president. "Anytime you can get west of I-75 with new construction is rare. You don't find that very often today."   After eight years of watching their golf course overtaken by weeds and dirt mounds, many Forest Lakes homeowners are delighted it will be rebuilt.   "We have a very bright future," Vickie Bass, president of the Forest Lakes Country Club Estates Homeowners Association, said in the group's latest newsletter.   But not everyone is happy about the project. Some Forest Lakes Village condominium residents, on the east side of Beneva, say the proposed villas and townhomes will come within 40 feet of their units, spoiling their views and breaking a promise to keep that land as a golf course or open space.

After more a decade of failed development attempts and a battle with foreclosure, new owners have proposed the redevelopment of the Forest Lakes golf course, where nothing but weeds and overgrown grass now stand.

 
"We're going to be looking at the back of these townhouses," said Pat Druggan, a member of the 128-unit condo association board. "You can talk to someone 40 feet away without a microphone."

Built in 1964 by a consortium that included the late NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Otto Graham, Forest Lakes Country Club was once a popular dining and dancing spot.

 
Developer Mark Miller in 2004 bought the golf course -- situated on both sides of Beneva -- and planned to build 189 condos. But after bulldozing every fairway, the real estate market collapsed, Miller ran out of money and lost the property to foreclosure.

County commissioners last month unanimously approved a rezoning that will allows owner and developer Grosvenor Square Capital LLC to reconfigure the residential development and increase the number of new units allowed from 189 to 202. It also changed the permitted housing types to include two-story villas and townhouses.

Grosvenor is headed by Neal Neilinger, a longtime investment executive from Connecticut who lives part time in Sarasota. Neilinger, also a stockholder and director in Sarasota's Sabal Palm Bank, acquired the golf course in 2011.

Mattamy, Canada's largest home builder, earlier this year paid $86.25 million for the 9,650-acre Thomas Ranch in and around North Port.

It hopes to begin construction in six months on the Enclave at Forest Lakes. The company is looking at several options that range from 160 to 200 units at the site, Suchora said.

The gated community will contain a mix of one- and two-story villas and townhomes, with two bedrooms, two baths and two-car garages, he said.

Units will be priced from $220,000 to $260,000, putting Mattamy's expected revenue at more than $38 million.

"We think we'll get a mix of buyers here," Suchora said. "This is close to downtown, the beaches. That this is part of a golf course redevelopment makes it just that much more attractive."

A park in the center of the project will have a swimming pool, cabana and other amenities.

Grosvenor retained approval for another 11 single-family homes on the west side of Beneva, where it also plans to build an 8,500-square-foot clubhouse with a restaurant. The club also plans to align with the First Tee youth golf program.

Residents of the condo association paid for a planner to produce alternate designs for the development to protect their views and lifestyle, but Druggan said they were rejected.

Part of the project will be built on the first and second fairways of the original course, which she said was pledged to remain open space "in perpetuity" under a previous county ordinance.

But the condo association does not plan to contest the rezoning any further.