Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel

By Martin E. Comas

Published April 5, 2015

For nearly a decade, residents of Sabal Point in Seminole County have waited to see what would be built on the closed golf course that once gave them green vistas and was the centerpiece of their community.

Now they know. And for the most part, they like what they see.

The developer of the old Sabal Point Country Club property has filed preliminary plans with the county to build up to 286 luxury apartments and three single family homes on about 28 acres where the old clubhouse stood, and along the former 10th and 18th greens.

Then 63 acres will be handed over to the Sabal Point community, which will keep and maintain it as open green space, according to a proposed agreement hammered out between the association's board of directors and the property owner, Golf Brooke LLC of Miami.

"We're very happy," said Nancy Walker, whose home sits along the old golf course and has lived in Sabal Point since 1991. "I'm pleased because now we know that all of the golf course is not going to be built on — that the aim is not going to be to turn that golf course into a massive housing project."

After acquiring the land, the community will make sure that the grass is mowed, said Wayne Hunicke, president of the board of directors for the Sabal Point Community Services Association. In the coming years, the association would like to turn that space into a recreational area for Sabal Point residents to use.

Hunicke said the association's board spent since June 2012 negotiating with the course owners to come up with a proposed settlement in which the Sabal Point community receives an open area, and the future owner and developer, Alexander Investments International of Winter Park, is able to build apartments and homes.

"I think this is truly a balanced and sustainable solution," Hunicke said. "It's going to mean that we will have open space. And it's probably going to add to the values of the [existing] homes."

In the past decade, several golf courses in communities across Central Florida have closed primarily because fewer people are playing the game. That has worried nearby residents who fear losing their cherished open space that golf courses provide to new-home construction.

Communities in the region are looking at different approaches of solving that problem.

Casselberry city commissioners, for example, agreed last week to purchase the long-struggling Casselberry Golf Club for $2.2 million in an effort to preserve that open space.
The old Sabal Point Country Club, between State Road 434 and Wekiwa Springs State Park in west Seminole County, closed in 2006. The clubhouse has since been demolished, and over the years much of the old fairways have become overgrown with weeds and brush.

Then in 2013, the owner of the property submitted preliminary plans to build homes and town houses on almost all the golf-course land. That alarmed many of the owners of the more than 1,600 Sabal Point homes and condos — including about 200 along the golf course.

"When the golf-course owner first started talking about redevelopment of the property, they were talking about a larger development with many more units," Hunicke said. "They were talking about building on the fairways behind existing single-family homes. We opposed that."

That's when Sabal Point hired attorneys and began negotiating with the property owner.

Seminole County Commissioner Lee Constantine helped mediate the talks.

"I felt that it was important that with all these golf courses closing that here was an opportunity to show that there is a way to satisfy the people who are already living there as well as the property rights of the owner," Constantine said.

"And I was very pleased with the amount of space that will be left open…. This is within the Wekiva Protection Area, and we have to be extremely cautious about any development that is going to happen in that area."

According to the proposed agreement, Alexander Investments will pay Sabal Point up to $175,000 to help cover the costs of the association's legal fees and hiring of consultants. It also will pay upfront any homeowner-association fees due for the apartments and homes. That will go toward paying for the costs of maintaining the open space for the next decade.

Besides hiring attorneys, the association also tapped stormwater specialists, landscape architects and environmental consultants to help negotiate the proposed settlement.

Sabal Point homeowners will likely vote on the agreement this summer. County commissioners will have to approve any development plans on the property.

Following residents' and the commissioners' approvals, the land will then be conveyed to the Sabal Point community, and construction would likely start in about a year.

"It's a relief," Hunicke said. "The biggest reason is that the closed golf course has been a source of uncertainty for a long time. So it's nice to have an endgame or closure in sight."