The Pellucid Perspective - March 2022 - 10

COMINGS
& GOINGS
Transactions Dominate Activities
A
ctivities in February remained relatively muted in the 1520
level (that we picked up on our public domain information
radar). The monthly tally was 14 Transactions
/Sales (continuing golf operations) followed by 2 redevelopments,
1 re-open and 1 on-the-bubble for our monthly total of
18. For those who want the detail and enjoy Jim's commentary,
the below table provides the details. Read on as we highlight
two unusual activities that didn't make the scorecard but are
interesting to observe.
In the " you might regret not taking this offer " category,
we read with interest an unsolicited bid by the University of
St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN) for the nearby 96 acre golf course
property (Town & Country) at $61.4M. The local paper, The
Business Journal, saved us the exercise of doing the math on
what the (estimated) 350 equity owners would reap, $175K/ea,
if they took the university up on the offer. While it does have
a very advantageous location and it appears a storied history
in St. Paul, that's a lot of Benjamins to walk away from and
which could easily buy you into the vast majority of any other
Private clubs in the US (even in today's inflationary market for
private clubs & memberships). On the other hand, likely most
of the well-heeled members of this club have also learned and
benefitted from the axiom, " location, location, location. "
The other activity of interest takes us across the Atlantic
Golf's landscape changes
Event
Course
Wellman Club
Open/Re-open
DMA
N/A
to the country of Spain where that country's Supreme Court
wielded the final(?) gavel on a 14-yr legal battle over the alleged
illegal development of Marina Isla de Valdecanas resort
and residential complex. The high court ruled that the entire
development, including the showcase 18 hole golf course,
must be razed and returned to its natural state " because it was
built illegally in a protected natural area on an island reservoir
(C&RB's Joe Barks). C&RB reports that ~$136M had been
invested to date in the development which will all go back to
ground level (incurring an estimated $38M of expense in the
demolition per court documents...). It appears that there's one
more level/type of appeal possible but this isn't looking good
for the " home team " and, by extension, all the property owners
(resort, residential and commercial). Ironically, the way it
appears it's currently structured the regional government will
have to foot the bill for the demolition (ouch!). Who will
provide restitution for the other stakeholders is unknown but
it's been estimated at an additional $127M (double ouch; can
you say " insurance " ?) remains to be determined. We think this
may be the largest, most expensive take-out in golf industry
history, globally. We'd have to check some of the happenings
in the happy place of China though, they did a pretty extensive
golf purge over the last 10-15 years but we don't think any one
single hit job matched this magnitude of pain.
Type/Holes Summary
Pub/18
Latest (and one of the longer) Lazarus courses,
closed in '10, has been maintained minimally by
locals since then. Bought by Florence County in
'21, will be leased to the town. Rees Jones hired
to rebuild the course (local ties). City using tax
money (up to $5.4M rumored) to revitalize the
course; town has option to buy after 10 yrs
The Town &
Country Club
University of
St. Thomas,
St. Paul, MN
10 The Pellucid PersPecTive
March 2022
The Pellucid Perspective - March 2022

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