Jack Nicklaus will design the course as part of the $600-million project. Lot prices will start in the mid $300,000s.
By JUDY STARK
Published December 13, 2003
BRADENTON - A luxury community with a private Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course and its own helipad is planned for 1,200 acres in Manatee County east of Interstate 75.
The $600-million project, called the Concession, will offer 255 single-family homes on sites that start at half an acre.
It provides a major new option in the luxury-home market that is likely to attract buyers not only from the Tampa Bay area but from the golfing community worldwide.
Nicklaus is designing the course in association with Tony Jacklin, the British golfing legend who lives in Bradenton. Both golfers plan to have homes in the community.
"This isn't just another golf course," Jacklin said Wednesday at a media launch at the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota. "It's the golf course."
Jacklin said he wants the course to be "on par with Augusta," the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., where the Masters tournament is played. When asked if that meant replicating Augusta's membership policies, which exclude women, Jacklin, along with the developer and the real estate agent for the project roared, "No!"
"Absolutely not," said Michael Saunders, the real estate agent.
"We love women," said Kevin Daves, president of Core Development of Sarasota and Wichita, Kan., which also developed the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota.
Jacklin, a four-time Ryder Cup captain, said he would love to see the cup matches played at the Concession course, though he acknowledged the earliest that could be scheduled is 2020. "But there would be the opportunity to get other major tournaments," he said.
The 18-hole course will be what is known as a "core" course, meaning no homes will border it. It will be on 520 acres, three times the acreage of a typical golf course. Separating residential and recreational allows greater privacy for residents and players. The course will have a clubhouse. The residential area will have a separate clubhouse and recreational facilities, including swimming pool and tennis courts.
"These will be some of the most expensive homes east of I-75," said Saunders, the real estate agent. Sites start in the mid $300,000s. The homes will be built by six builders, four of whom were announced Wednesday. All are familiar names in the Sarasota-Manatee home building community: Anchor Builders, Pruett Builders, John Cannon Homes and Gibraltar Homes. There are no plans for multifamily residences, Saunders said.
Saunders said the builders are developing designs that will be built exclusively at the Concession. "They will be traditional and classic, as opposed to Mediterranean or contemporary," she said. "I'd like to think that if you visit the place in 10 years, you won't know when it was developed.
"People are hungry for an upper-end golf-course community."
The local market has been losing those buyers to Naples. The last significant golf-course community in Sarasota was Laurel Oaks and the Oaks, built in the 1980s, Saunders said. "There is no new comparable golf course community in Pinellas or Hillsborough," she said.
The land, just east of the huge residential community of Lakewood Ranch, has never been developed. It was part of the acreage of an existing residential project, Panther Ridge. It includes hummocks, sloughs and old oaks and pines, some as much as 150 feet tall.
A preliminary design for the course has been completed. The next step is to stake it out. Then Nicklaus and Jacklin will walk the course and refine the plans. Work is expected to start in March, and the course is expected to open in spring 2005.
The project takes its name from Nicklaus' action at the 1969 Ryder Cup match at Royal Birkdale in England; he conceded a 2-foot putt to Jacklin that resulted in a tie between the British and American teams.
Nicklaus designed the golf course at Twin Eagles in Naples and redesigned the course at Avila in Hillsborough County. He has designed many other courses in Florida.
Site sales will start in January, first from Saunders' office in downtown Sarasota and later from a sales center at the site, which is 61/2 miles east of I-75 between State Road 70 and University Parkway.
Information is available at the Web site, www.theconcession.com Saunders' real estate office can be reached at 941 951-6484 in Sarasota.
