‘A fantastic opportunity.’ As Muni golf course closes, what’s next for 54 acres of land?
When the city closes its nine-hole Modesto Municipal Golf Course later this year, it will have the rare opportunity to redevelop 54 beautiful, tree-studded acres in a prime location near downtown and Highway 99.
Could Modesto’s first golf course, which opened in 1933, become the site of housing — perhaps a mix of affordable rental and senior housing as well as market-rate homes — or youth athletic fields and open space, or a combination of all of the above or something else?
City officials acknowledged in an interview that this is a great opportunity for Modesto but said it is too early in the process to talk about specific future uses at the golf course, which is in west Modesto next to John Thurman Field and near the Tuolumne River.
Parks, Recreation and Neighborhoods Director Laurie Smith said the City Council has directed city staff to gather community input as part of determining the golf course’s future.
She said the city will hold two public meetings to hear from residents. The meetings will be held near the course and are tentatively scheduled for March 12 and 19. The city will publicize the times and locations once they have been determined.
“It’s very important to invite the community to give us feedback,” Smith said. “That’s going to be a very important step. What the neighbors want to see will influence” the city’s decision on the golf course’s future. “... We (city staff) are not predicting or presuming it will go one way or another. We want to provide the City Council with all the information they need to a make a decision.”
The council decided last month to direct staff to shutter the course and prepare it for sale, a reflection of the financial difficulties Modesto has had in owning three courses (18-hole Creekside and Dryden are the others) as well as declining interest in the game nationwide.
New home for The First Tee
The closure will take time. The local chapter of The First Tee — a nationwide organization that teaches life skills to young people through golf — manages Muni under a contract with the city that ends in December. The city is working with First Tee to move its program to Dryden by no later than the end of the contract.
Modesto officials have stressed that the council has not yet decided to sell the course. City officials now are determining the steps involved in preparing the course for sale, including getting an appraisal and reviewing the legal requirements of disposing of city-owned property.
Smith said staff could come back to the City Council in late spring or early summer with that information. She said council members “have expressed a strong interest in maintaining an involvement in the future development of the course” if they decide to sell it.
“This is a great opportunity,” Community and Economic Development Director Jaylen French said. He said the course is surrounded by “a mature neighborhood, and to be able to do redevelopment and bring something new and some amenities to the community is a fantastic opportunity.”
2016 appraisal valued Muni at $1.6M
The city had the golf course appraised four years ago. The January 2016 appraisal concluded that building single-family homes was the best use of the property, and it was worth $1.6 million. The appraisal stated it could take five to 10 years to develop the property given the market and other conditions at the time.
While city officials declined to speculate on Muni’s future and what it means for west Modesto — one of the city’s most diverse, poorest and oldest communities — others have their own ideas.
“We’d like to see that parcel of land developed as affordable housing,” said Ron DeLoach, chairman of the West Modesto People of Action Council, which is dedicated to improving that part of the city. “We are the so-called low-income area of Modesto. But that is slowly deteriorating and becoming a more unaffordable area. We as residents of west Modesto are finding it hard to find residences.”
DeLoach has lived in west Modesto since 2009 and said the same pressures that are driving up rents and housing prices throughout the city, the region and the rest of the state are at work in his community. He said more families who normally would not consider west Modesto are buying homes there because they have been priced out elsewhere, and investors are buying housing for rentals.
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He added that there is a dire need for housing for seniors. DeLoach also said he’d like a community center at the site that would serve as another focal point.
But eight residents who live in homes next to the golf course don’t want housing, and some were strongly opposed to affordable rental housing. The residents are a mix of homeowners and renters. The Bee found them by knocking on doors at random along the streets next to the golf course.
Their worries about housing include that it would make traffic much worse. They also are not keen about other types of development, such as a mix of housing and businesses. They’d prefer the site remain a golf course or if it has to change, a park, community center and recreation would be OK.
One 65-year-old homeowner, who asked that her name not be used, said she and her husband sit on the picnic table on their front porch and watch the golfers. She said it gives them a sense of peace and joy to have that much green, open space right in front of them.
One of the area’s few amenities
Other residents said the golf course is one of the few amenities in a part of the city that does not have many. They said the neighborhood parks are not as clean, and residents don’t feel safe in them. Some said that when the course is closed to golfing, such as during the early evenings in summer, they have family picnics or stroll through Muni’s grounds.
“I’m sad,” 20-year-old Marina Martinez said of the city’s decision to close the course and potentially sell it. “We had a lot of memories there. We had family nights there.”
Martinez said her parents have owned their home for a few decades, and during weekend barbecues, parties and other large family gatherings in the summer, family members would walk across the street in the evening and play baseball and other games on the golf course.
“We are so used to it,” Martinez said. “It’s like a second home to us.”
Councilman Tony Madrigal, whose district includes west Modesto and who lives in the community, said in an interview that Modesto needs a balanced approach in providing for the quality of life of all of its residents.
He said he supports a mixed-used development of affordable housing and businesses at the golf course. He said that can be done while addressing concerns about traffic and the loss of a treasured open space. He said Modesto has the opportunity to develop more recreation along the nearby Tuolumne River and its Tuolumne River Regional Park.
City officials also are looking at whether they can repurpose the nearby 18-hole Dryden Golf Course, perhaps using part of it as a nine-hole course and developing the rest as a recreation area.
Madrigal agreed with DeLoach of the West Modesto People of Action Council that west Modesto needs more housing that average people can afford.
“We are in urgent need of more workforce housing (affordable housing), and economic development in west Modesto,” he said in a text. “(Muni) could be a catalyst for much-needed community revitalization in west Modesto, especially since it’s strategically located near Highway 99.”
Money to fix up other courses
Smith, the city’s parks and recreation director, said the intent is to use the proceeds from the sale of the Modesto Municipal Golf Course to make much-needed and long-delayed capital improvements at Dryden and Creekside, the city’s two 18-hole courses.
She said the goal, if the council decides to move forward with selling Muni, is to sell it as soon as possible after it closes to minimize the city’s expenses of securing and maintaining it.
Smith has conservatively estimated it would cost Modesto $159,000 annually to secure and maintain the course, including providing security guards for 12 hours a day as well as mowing and watering.
Councilwoman Jenny Kenoyer said last month, when the council decided to close the course and prepare it for sale, that she was concerned that the longer the course was vacant, the more it would become a magnet for homeless encampments or what she called people looking for living space.
