The city agreed to extending the closing with developer GL Homes on the western municipal golf course to April 30, 2021. The $65.5 million sale price will stay the same.
“There was no increase in the price for this extension,” GL Homes vice president Larry Portnoy confirmed. “If the city exercises the first option to extend for six months, then the closing will be on Oct. 30, 2021 and the price increases to $65.75 million. If the city and GL both agree to a second extension, then the closing is moved to April 30, 2022 and the price increases to $66 million.”
The original sale price was $65 million. GL Homes was chosen from contenders to buy the nearly 200-acre site on Glades Road west of city limits in November 2017.
In a 10th requested modification, Boca also gave GL Homes until November 30 to resolve issues over the county’s public safety tower. The original date was May 31.
“Is six months necessary?” Mayor Scott Singer asked at council’s meeting Tuesday. The pandemic caused two months or more of delay “getting the tower done with the county,” said Deputy City Manager George S. Brown.
The extensions passed easily and no residents objected. But the sale has implications for golf in the city.
GL Homes had agreed to hold off on the closing until the city’s new public golf course was playable. That way, there would still be an 18-hole public course in the city. That may actually come to pass.
Work on Boca National Golf Course in Boca Teeca is on hold. The city still hasn’t approved the Price Fazio design. The buyer has even discussed putting pickleball courts in some tennis courts in the interim. A pickleball discussion is on the agenda for the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District meeting at 5:15 p.m. Monday May 18.
After years of backs and forths, the district decided to build the course after declining a city offer. It re-engineering the course to cost less. But those plans are on hold, too, until the district budgets the funds and bids out construction.
Meanwhile, the city allowed the municipal course to reopen for play with restrictions and schedule tee-times.
By Marci Shatzman
