U.S. Assets Group News
New Golf Club Said to Set Standards
03/06/2004
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)
March 6, 2004
Section: BUSINESS
Page: D1
RICH SHOPES rich.shopes@heraldtribune.com
Correction: The following correction was published on Thursday, March 11, 2004: Correction: Several reporting errors occurred in a March 6 article about the The Founders Club. The club's golf course will be completed by the end of this year, and the entire community will be fully developed by the first of next year, regardless of current lot sales. Annual dues will be about $7,000, not $9,000 as reported. In addition to three-quarter-acre lots, the development includes one-third and one-half acre sites.
The Founder's Club, Sarasota's new pricey country club and gated subdivision, got an elaborate send-off Friday, five years after developers first proposed the 700-acre golf community. A long approval process by county officials became further entangled three years ago when nearby residents opposed the project. It eventually broke ground in January. Famed golf course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. said the delays proved to be the biggest hurdle, more significant than the actual design work. On Friday, however, as county officials, developers, marketing executives and caterers, gathered under a white tent, the talk was about golf and how the $300 million Founder's project will set standards for other courses and how the unfinished country club has already spawned imitators. Two other pricey golf developments are in the works for the region, one involving the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota and the other involving Jack Nicklaus and developer Kevin Daves. That project, called The Concession, is in Manatee County. Jones, based just outside Paolo Alto, Calif., said his latest creation, set to open by the year's end, ahead of the competition, will stand above those others by emphasizing an imaginative design with indigenous fauna and flora. The result will be a club that "looks like it was always there." The 6,900-yard course at Fruitville Road, three miles east of Interstate 75, is sculpted around wetlands, slash pines, palmettos and live oaks draped with Spanish moss. It's being developed by the Starling Group and U.S. Assets Group, the developer of Sarasota's Beau Ciel condominium tower. Two-hundred sixty-two estate homes on 3/4-acre lots will surround the course and pay for its construction. The houses will range from $700,000 to more than $3 million, said Thomas Brown, a principal owner of Sarasota-based U.S. Assets. Already, 200 of the home sites have sold, he said. Golf equity memberships will cost $75,000 each and be set aside for homeowners before being offered to the public. Annual membership dues will run about $9,000. Jones, who has developed 219 open courses over 40 years, likened Florida to a warm Scotland -- a golf destination with a warm climate year-round. He also said the Sarasota market is ripe for an upscale golf community. "It's a beautiful piece of land," Jones said. "This will be a core course. If you miss a shot, it won't land on someone's property, but on another fairway."
New golf club said to set standards
March 6, 2004
Section: BUSINESS
Page: D1
RICH SHOPES rich.shopes@heraldtribune.com
Correction: The following correction was published on Thursday, March 11, 2004: Correction: Several reporting errors occurred in a March 6 article about the The Founders Club. The club's golf course will be completed by the end of this year, and the entire community will be fully developed by the first of next year, regardless of current lot sales. Annual dues will be about $7,000, not $9,000 as reported. In addition to three-quarter-acre lots, the development includes one-third and one-half acre sites.
The Founder's Club, Sarasota's new pricey country club and gated subdivision, got an elaborate send-off Friday, five years after developers first proposed the 700-acre golf community. A long approval process by county officials became further entangled three years ago when nearby residents opposed the project. It eventually broke ground in January. Famed golf course architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. said the delays proved to be the biggest hurdle, more significant than the actual design work. On Friday, however, as county officials, developers, marketing executives and caterers, gathered under a white tent, the talk was about golf and how the $300 million Founder's project will set standards for other courses and how the unfinished country club has already spawned imitators. Two other pricey golf developments are in the works for the region, one involving the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota and the other involving Jack Nicklaus and developer Kevin Daves. That project, called The Concession, is in Manatee County. Jones, based just outside Paolo Alto, Calif., said his latest creation, set to open by the year's end, ahead of the competition, will stand above those others by emphasizing an imaginative design with indigenous fauna and flora. The result will be a club that "looks like it was always there." The 6,900-yard course at Fruitville Road, three miles east of Interstate 75, is sculpted around wetlands, slash pines, palmettos and live oaks draped with Spanish moss. It's being developed by the Starling Group and U.S. Assets Group, the developer of Sarasota's Beau Ciel condominium tower. Two-hundred sixty-two estate homes on 3/4-acre lots will surround the course and pay for its construction. The houses will range from $700,000 to more than $3 million, said Thomas Brown, a principal owner of Sarasota-based U.S. Assets. Already, 200 of the home sites have sold, he said. Golf equity memberships will cost $75,000 each and be set aside for homeowners before being offered to the public. Annual membership dues will run about $9,000. Jones, who has developed 219 open courses over 40 years, likened Florida to a warm Scotland -- a golf destination with a warm climate year-round. He also said the Sarasota market is ripe for an upscale golf community. "It's a beautiful piece of land," Jones said. "This will be a core course. If you miss a shot, it won't land on someone's property, but on another fairway."
