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Golf course buyer plans lavish resort

He clears rumors of what will become of Oak Hills Golf Club: It will remain a golf course But that's not all.

By DAN DEWITT
Published October 15, 2006

SPRING HILL - As news of the sale of Oak Hills Golf Club circulated in recent months, some neighbors and customers speculated that the course would be cleared for tract housing.

Some thought it might be turned into a cemetery, said John Gravely, the club's operating manager.

"We even heard rumors we were going to have a flea market in front and a trailer park in back," he said. "I've heard all sorts of things."

But on Friday, future owner James DeMaria revealed his true plans for the property.

DeMaria, who is scheduled to close the deal to buy the land next week, said he will upgrade the neglected golf course so it can serve as the centerpiece of a 235-acre resort.

On the undeveloped land near Northcliffe Boulevard, he plans to build bars, restaurants, a clubhouse with a banquet hall large enough to hold 800 people, and about 150 townhouses that he will rent for short-term stays.

Though the resort will be self-contained, said DeMaria, owner of Blue Stone Real Estate Development and Construction Corp. of Spring Hill, he also plans to tie it in with the water park and resort that he intends to build on U.S. 19 across from Weeki Wachee Springs. He already owns the Best Western Resort Weeki Wachee there.

Around the fringe of the Oak Hills course, he said, he sees space for about 40 lots that he hopes to sell for single-family homes.

Attracting resort customers from outside the county is crucial to his plan, DeMaria said, because Spring Hill residents are not willing to spend enough money to support the course.

"The Spring Hill cocktail is a glass of ice water with a lemon," said DeMaria, who estimated that he would charge $3,000 to $3,500 for a family to stay a week at the resort, a price that would include meals and unlimited use of the facilities.

"If people want culture, if they want something good here, they've got to go into their pockets and pay for it," he said.

The course will "still be open to the people of Spring Hill, but it won't be $10 for a round of golf," he said. "It won't be $100 a round either, but it will be somewhere in between."

The combination of a bargain-seeking population and intense competition among local courses has kept prices at Oak Hills low, said Gravely, who plans to continue working at the course. DeMaria said reconstruction of the course will begin in May, after the busy winter season.

Former PGA star Raymond Floyd, his wife and the other Oak Hills owners have watched the annual number of rounds played at the course drop from 58,000 a decade ago to 40,000, Gravely said. The prices, meanwhile, have not increased since 1997.

"That's pretty sad, if you think about it," he said.

Golfers can play 18 holes for as little as $12 on summer evenings, he said. The maximum price for a morning round is $32 in the winter. The course has never lost money, he said, but it hasn't generated enough profit to allow Floyd to improve it.

Neighbors have noticed, said Tom Hebert, 69, whose house overlooks the eighth green and who regularly plays the course.

The staff is always friendly, he said, but the cart paths have begun to deteriorate; the clubhouse is a converted mobile home; the tee boxes are worn; and the fairways are weed-infested.

Also, Hebert said, the course does not adequately enforce rules to protect the course. He sees players failing to replace divots and driving carts onto the edges of the greens.

"It gets pretty heavy play by a lot of people who don't know a lot about golf," he said.

He has a point, Gravely said; workers are reluctant to confront customers about rules violations for fear of alienating them.

Hebert and other nearby homeowners said there is room for more houses around the fairways and that they would not object if DeMaria created additional lots.

"My only worry is that it would no longer be a golf course. That would really disappoint me," Hebert said.

He need not be concerned, said DeMaria, who added that he plans to meet with residents after the sale to explain his plan. The details of that, he said, depend on several factors, including zoning.

The property is zoned for recreational use, which will allow DeMaria to build some short-term rental units on the property, said Jerry Greif, the county's chief planner.

If he wants to add lots around the course, however, he will need a zoning change, Greif said. Depending on the size of the resort, he might have to help pay for improvements to Northcliffe Boulevard, especially because the school district is planning to build a large school near the property.

DeMaria said his plans also depend on the small city of Weeki Wachee to grant him permission to build several hundred additional hotel rooms at the Best Western. He is convinced that the Spring Hill area, with a water park and golf resort, can be a tourist destination, he said, "but we need 400 to 600 rooms to support it."

Dan DeWitt can be reached at dewitt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6116.

[Last modified October 15, 2006, 07:21:37]