By Fred Seely
Editor, Golf News
(This story originally appeared in the Golf News, a sister publication of Realty/Builder Connection.)
When you call Jacksonville’s newest golf course a “dump,” it’s a compliment.
Built over a huge landfill on the city’s southside, a 9-hole course named Sunbeam Hill Golf Course will open in November and its owner, Atlanta businessman Dane Cates, says he knows his audience.
“We won’t be pretentious,” he said. “We’ll give good value and we’ll make everyone feel at home.”
The golfers will be played atop almost 4 million cubic feet of old trash as the course will be built on what has been called the Sunbeam Sanitary Landfill. The permitting process has been going on since 2002, when Cates’ company, Retirement Corporation of America — Florida, acquired the 225-acre property from Waste Management, whose trucks dumped the trash that built the impressive hill just a short distance from U.S. 1.
The project has received recognition even before it opens. Cates was chosen as one of seven honored by the area’s largest real estate newspaper, Realty/Builder Connection, for good works in the areas during 2007. Others included Sherry Davidson, the broker for Davidson Realty, which controls most real estate sales at the World Golf Village.
“This is good use for what could be an eyesore,” said Cates, who is moving to Jacksonville and currently is renting a home in Plantation Country Club. “Our architect, Roy Case (of West Palm Beach,) is a specialist in dealing with landfills and we’ll have a good course.”
It also could have the area’s most spectacular hole: the ninth will be a par 3 of 215 yards with a 60-foot drop from tee to green. For a perspective, check out a six-story building.
The elevation comes from the trash that filled 71 acres of the area from 1972 to 1986, when it reached capacity and was closed. The trash rose 65 feet above grade and has been covered by a “soil cap” about three feet deep.
Cates, who holds a 12 handicap at Hawk’s Ridge in Atlanta, is getting advice from another area course owner who keeps things simple, Mike Pullen, who owns St. Augustine Shores and leases Cecil Field. Both provide low-fee golf.
“Our next step is hiring a superintendent,” said Cates. “Then we’ll get a pro as we get closer to the opening.”
The course will be run from a simple clubhouse, a 36x60 foot modular building similar to the temporary pro shops you see at clubs getting a new building. There will be a range.
The course will be regulation length, around 3,400 yards. Many holes will have two sets of tees to provide a different look on each nine.
“It will be a fast course,” said Cates. “I want a place that someone can play during lunchtime.”
It will be one of few 9-hole courses in the area joining White Oak Plantation and the Palm Valley executive course.
Also under construction is an adjacent condo community that Cates says “Won’t be anything like all the apartments around here I see that are being marketed as condos.”
Called a “brownfield project,” the conversion of the landfill requires local, state and Federal approvals, and Cates did the entire deal without any governmental financial incentives.
“It’s been quite a journey from our initial vision of this property,” said Cates. “We have been extremely diligent in making sure that all issues, large and small, have been properly addressed.”
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, successful brownfields projects have changed the way that contaminated property is perceived, addressed and managed.
The ERA estimates there are over 400,000 brownfields areas and has urged local governments to work with developers for numerous reasons, including protection of the environment and increasing tax bases.
Cates’ company was founded in Bradenton and his family once owned a golf course in that area. Despite its name that includes the word “retirement,” the company is a traditional developer that does not limit its sales to one particular demographic.
Cates’ company also is developing a residential community near St. Augustine named The Villages of Seloy.