The fate of the former Riviera Golf Course in East Naples remains uncertain.

It's still mired in legal challenges – and the owners recently rejected a neighboring resident's offer to buy it.

Steve Campbell, who lives in the surrounding community of Riviera Golf Estates, offered to pay $857,000 for the more than 90-acre property, based on its "foreclosure condition."

While the property isn't in foreclosure, he said it's long been neglected, so he considered his offer fair.

The owners didn't think so.

"I received an email that said basically 'thanks, but no thanks,'" Campbell said.

He planned to mortgage his house to pay for the old golf course, then seek reimbursement through the homeowner association later.

Although his wife is president of the homeowners association, he said the HOA had no knowledge of his "secret offer." It would have required a $30 to $40 monthly assessment to pay him back and to maintain the property, which the board hadn't approved.

He hoped to rally support and turn the property into a "veterans park," staving off development. He's a veteran himself.

With his offer, Campbell included a $1,000 check to "bind" the agreement, which the owners returned after informing him they're "not interested."

"I can go to sleep now, knowing I tried," he said. "I used all my GI Bill thinking."

In 2018, he was part of a larger group of residents pushing for the purchase of the golf course, but the effort failed. The offering price then: $2.5 million to $3 million.

Over the years, there have been other attempts to save the property from conversion into a residential development.

In January, Collier commissioners rejected a proposed settlement that could have preserved the property, resolved a $14 million-plus property rights claim and prevented a lawsuit against the county.

Through a straw poll, an overwhelming majority of residents said they didn't support the compromise, however, seeing it as unfair.

Under the agreement, the county would have purchased the property for $5.8 million, but the homeowners would have been required to pay the county back in full, and to cover maintenance and repairs, through costly annual assessments levied by the special district.

Over 10 years, a consultant hired by the county proposed annual assessments ranging from a high of more than $2,602 to a low of about $1,542 based on benefits, with owners of single-family homes located on the golf course and in a cul-de-sac paying the most, and owners of mobile homes not fronting the golf course paying the least.

County sued under Bert Harris Act

After the compromise failed, La Minnesota Riviera LLC, the property's owners, filed a lawsuit against the county in February, under Florida's Bert Harris property rights act in state court. The developers claim they've been "inordinately burdened" by new rules for rezoning a golf course.

The developers allege golf course conversion rules adopted in 2017 have burdened "the reasonably foreseeable residential use of the property with new cumbersome processes and new development standards."

La Minnesota asserts the county's requirement for a larger greenway, instead of a traditional buffer to shield its development from the surrounding community would reduce the number of single-family homes it could build on its property from 346 to 104.

The developers value their property losses – equating to 242 homes – at $14.52 million.

Earlier this month, the county asked for a "stay," or pause, in the legal spat, until a separate lawsuit, filed by the Riviera Golf Estates Homeowners Association against the developers in the same court, is resolved. La Minnesota agreed to the county's request.

HOA sued the developer

In 2022, the homeowners association sued the developers for declaratory relief in the same court, asserting the developers are bound by a "recorded covenant" that requires the property to be used solely as a golf course, and for "no other purpose."

If the court, or a jury, should agree with the association, the county argues the Bert Harris claims it's facing would then become "moot," as La Minnesota wouldn't be able to build homes on the site anyway.

In court filings, the developers assert that the association lacks standing to bring a suit, and the restrictive covenant the legal challenge is based on has been "extinguished," under Florida’s Marketable Title Act, which allows certain recorded documents to be deemed too old, or no longer relevant and ignored to simplify the purchase and sale of property. The covenant dates back to the 1970s.

A trial in the case is scheduled for January.

La Minnesota, a corporation based in Lilydale, Minnesota, purchased the public golf course for $4.8 million in 2005. Located off Rattlesnake Hammock Road, just west of County Barn Road, the course has been closed since April 2022.