Clearwater Voters Opt For Green Space Over Workspace

CLEARWATER, FL — While golf isn't the sport for everyone, Clearwater residents made it clear at the polls Tuesday that golf courses are an asset that the city should be preserved.

When presented with a chance to lease 58 acres of the city-owned Landings Golf Club of Clearwater, 1875 Airport Drive, to be developed for light industrial and medical uses, Clearwater voters answered with a resounding "no."

According to unofficial results posted by the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections office, 35,718 voters said they want the property to remain a golf course while 22,769 voters favored developing the property.

Once considered golfer's paradise, Florida is seeing an increasing number of public and private golf courses being sold to developers as buildable property becomes harder to find.

At the same time, the sport of golf is on the decline. In golf's heyday between the 1960s and 2000, there were probably more business deals made on the greens than across a boardroom table.

Florida, especially, experienced a golf course boom with thousands of communities built around golf courses with the priciest homes abutting the course. In fact, Florida become oversaturated with golf courses that weren't able to attract enough members to sustain them.

With big businesses clamping down on golf club memberships for executives during the federal scrutiny of the Great Recession and a decline in the number of retirees interested in the sport, more golf courses are being told to developers.

According to the National Golf Foundation, more than 700 golf courses have closed since 2011.

Metrostudy, which provides market information to the housing and residential construction industry, said the number of younger people age 18 to 30 interested in taking up the game of golf has dropped 35 percent over the last decade.

“Most golf courses lose money," said David Cobb, south Florida regional director for Metrostudy. While a few builders are having success with golf, “generally builders and developers are shying away from including golf courses in their new communities.”

While interest in the sport has waned, Floridians still appreciate the beauty and open space that golf courses offer.

While developing the Landings Golf Club would result in perks like a boost in the economy and new jobs, Nancy Mauro echoed the sentiments of many Clearwater residents when she said that, in the long run, she believes Clearwater residents would regret losing the golf course.

"Once it is gone, you can not get it back," she said. "Pinellas has other underdeveloped areas for industrial expansion."

In the past few, years, Clearwater has two greens covered in concrete and structures Both the Countryside Executive Golf Course and the Sabal Point Golf Course were sold to developers for luxury apartment complexes.

"In the last few years, they have destroyed golf courses in Clearwater and filled them with apartments and did not expand the roads first," Mauro said.

The amendment was added to the ballot after Harrod Properties approached the city with a proposal to construct a $131 million medical and light industrial development on the property, which abuts the Clearwater Airpark.

City staff said property for light industrial and manufacturing uses is scarce in North Pinellas County, which now has about 13.8 million square feet of industrial space but is projected to need 10 million more over the next 20 years.

Staff estimated that Harrod Properties' proposal would net the city $11 million in benefits over the next 10 years and create 3,783 jobs.

Additionally, the city would continue to maintain about 12 acres for a city golf course.

But on Tuesday, both duffers and voters who'd never even held a putter opted for green space over workspace.