- April 26, 2024
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Local developer Jim Cullis, president of Grand Haven Realty, has cancelled plans to purchase the Matanzas Woods Golf Course.
"We're no longer pursuing it," he said. "It's a hard business to start with, and there was a lot of difference of opinion with the neighbors with what they would want to see there."
Cullis had proposed building a park on the property, but the idea drew opposition from neighbors who thought it would be a cover for planned development, or that a park would invite crime into the neighborhood.
Some had threatened to sue if Cullis bought the property and built homes on it.
"There was never much support for the park," Cullis said. "Some people liked that, but not very many. Then we thought maybe we'd work with the neighbors to redo the course." But that would take a lot of capital, and that idea, too, got a mixed reception, he said.
"We tried to build a consensus," he said. "But some neighbors didn't want to see any development at all."
The Matanzas Woods Golf Course, now overgrown with weeds, was purchased in 2011 by the Golf Group along with the Pine Lakes Golf Course and the Cypress Knoll Golf Course.
The other two courses are open, but a planned transformation of Matanzas Woods never happened.
