Lackawanna County has applied for $4 million in federal money to buy a former golf course in Jefferson Twp. and preserve most of it as open space, according to a copy of the application.<\/p>\n
But two of the three county commissioners say they didn’t know the county applied for money to buy the land.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly, it didn’t come from me,\u201d Commissioner Bill Gaughan said. \u201cI had no knowledge that this golf course project was going to be a part of an ask of the federal government and specifically Rob Bresnahan.\u201d<\/p>\n
The application asks U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan to obtain the money through Congress\u2019 community project funding. Congress doles out the money for community projects to individual congressmen to distributre annually. The county and the state of Pennsylvania would contribute $2 million each to buy the land for $8 million, according to the application.<\/p>\n
Though Gaughan brought up the application at a commissioners meeting Wednesday, Chermak said he learned the application was actually filed with Bresnahan’s office when a WVIA News reporter told him about it Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do now,\u201d he said when asked if he knew.<\/p>\n
Efforts to reach Commissioner Thom Welby were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
DeNaples brothers partly own land<\/p>\n
SMGC Realty LP owns the land. Local businessmen Louis and Dominick DeNaples at least partly co-own the company, a real-estate agent publicly said six years ago. The property has not changed hands since, records show.<\/p>\n
Gaughan said state Sen. Marty Flynn approached him and former Commissioner Matt McGloin about buying the course long ago, but they declined because of the county\u2019s financial position.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had mentioned it to us on a few occasions, and then once we took office,\u201d Gaughan said.<\/p>\n
Gaughan raised the application at a commissioners meeting Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was something that was discussed two years ago with Commissioner (Matt) McGloin and I,\u201d Gaughan said.<\/p>\n
The plan was \u201cfor the county to essentially run the old Scranton Municipal Golf Course,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we decided not to pursue it because we did not think it was appropriate for the county to get into the business of running a public golf course, especially in light of the fact that we inherited a county government that had a $37 million deficit, among many other financial problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
McGloin resigned last year.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, Commissioner Chris Chermak said he knew nothing about a golf course plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cBilly just mentioned a golf course. I don’t know anything about county buying a golf course,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Chermak acknowledged he knew about a county-commissioned 2024 study about reopening the golf course, but didn\u2019t know about the application either.<\/p>\n
Flynn said he thought the commissioners had abandoned the idea. He said he knew nothing about the federal application, but was pleased the idea seems revived.<\/p>\n
“I think it would be a good thing for the area,” he said. “The people of North Pocono, they would love it.”<\/p>\n
Flynn confirmed the DeNaples brothers still co-own the land. He said they were asking more than $8 million previously. <\/p>\n
“The number started a lot higher than $8 million,” he said.<\/p>\n
Flynn said he inserted $2 million into the state budget a few years ago to cover the state share, but the deal faltered. He said a South Korean company whose name he could not remember was interested in operating the course. Renovations would cost $10 million, Flynn estimated.<\/p>\n
Golf course history<\/p>\n
The course, opened in June 1960, closed in 2020 as local interest in the publicly owner golf course waned.<\/p>\n
SMGC Realty owns the 176.6 acres that included the golf course. SMGC, an acronym for the former golf course\u2019s name, bought the land from the city of Scranton for more than $3.4 million in 2003.<\/p>\n
After the golf course closed, a California company hoped to build six warehouses there with almost 4.2 million square feet of space. Residents objected, fearing traffic and noise.<\/p>\n
In June 2022, the township supervisors thwarted the warehouse construction by voting against rezoning the land from low-density residential.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the county \u2014 led then by Chermak and commissioners Debi Domenick and Jerry Notarianni \u2014 commissioned a study to determine if restoring and operating the golf course could work.<\/p>\n
The Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce carried out the study, and the county reimbursed the chamber $24,000 to pay for it, Gaughan said.<\/p>\n
What the study found<\/p>\n
StoneCreek Partners, a national real-estate consulting firm, conducted the study and found:<\/p>\n
A public golf course would attract plenty of golfers and could thrive with better management than before.The course could pay back its loans borrowed to raise money to restore the course with operating revenues.The county would buy the land with grant money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis transaction has merit given the possibility of grant funds for the acquisition of the property,\u201d the study says. \u201cThe grant funds allow a property to return to community use at a price that the property owner finds acceptable and for which sufficient grant funds may be available.\u201d<\/p>\n
What the application says<\/p>\n
The federal application does not call for restoring the golf course. It says the county would preserve about 160 acres permanently for recreation, including walking, hiking and other outdoor activities and events.<\/p>\n
About 25 acres may accommodate 125 townhouses, generating \u201can estimated $75 million in private housing investment in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis balanced approach preserves the majority of the property while helping address regional housing needs and expanding the local tax base,\u201d the application says.<\/p>\n
The application assumes a March 5, 2027, project start date with completion by Dec. 28, 2027.<\/p>\n
Gaughan questioned if anyone appraised the land, who decided to apply for the federal money and why the county would be involved in a housing project better left to the private sector.<\/p>\n
Chermak said he was familiar with the 2024 study and he\u2019s willing to entertain the proposal but isn\u2019t ready to commit to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven’t gotten that far yet,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m still trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do with data centers and all kinds of things that don’t even cover what a commissioner is supposed to be doing, but I guess that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lackawanna County has applied for $4 million in federal money to buy a former golf course in Jefferson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-144696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}