Faced with the possibility that a builder will try to convert the 140-acre Chippanee Country Club into a housing subdivision, Bristol is looking into whether to buy the property itself.
The 18-hole golf course went on the market in the fall with a listing price of $5 million, and real estate marketing websites now display two prospective plans for residential development showing 141 houses and duplexes.
On Tuesday night, Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu announced that the city is considering acquiring the property itself. Although it is not binding, the city council authorized Zoppo-Sassu to sign a letter of intent stating it might buy Chippanee as early as July 1 after seeing results of building inspections, soil exams and financial reviews.
Bristol has already hired an appraiser to report by the end of the month about the property’s value.
Zoppo-Sassu said a purchase would go forward only if financial data and projections clearly showed there would be no operating loss. Instead, she’s looking for future revenue from the golf course to pay back whatever the city would lay out for the acquisition.
“We’ve looked at other (municipally owned) golf courses and seen several good models out there. We’ve already made contact with them to talk about their operations and practices,” she said.
Numerous communities in central Connecticut own and operate relatively similar facilities, including the Hunter Golf Course in Meriden, the Rockledge Golf Club in West Hartford, New Britain’s Stanley Golf Course, Hartford’s Keney Park Golf Course and Berlin’s Timberlin Golf Course.
One possibility is that the city offers to buy the development rights but not the property itself, a strategy that Southington used in 2021 as a way to preserve open space without taking on responsibility for running a golf course. Voters approved a $4.5 million deal that kept the 100-acre Southington Country Club in private hands but barred future development.
“Everything is on the table right now,” Zoppo-Sassu said Wednesday.
Bristol officials have been talking with Chippanee owner Fritz Blasius since the property went on the market in November. Blasius did not return a phone message this week.
“We’ve had some very positive conversations, he’s been wonderful to deal with,” Zoppo-Sassu said. “We’ve been speaking about the potential of the city purchasing development rights or purchasing it outright and running a municipal golf course like many other communities do successfully.”
If the city acquires the property, it would use engineering reports and a feasibility study to determine what to do with the various amenities. The club has a popular restaurant, a clubhouse that’s often rented for banquets or group meetings, tennis courts and an Olympic-sized pool. Many communities lease the restaurants at their golf courses to private vendors, and Zoppo-Sassu said a good option might be to invite the current operator at Chippanee to continue on.
Zoppo-Sassu said a completed sale isn’t likely until the city gets to monitor operations at Chippanee over the summer.
“We’re initially thinking the parks department would have some involvement in operations, but we haven’t gone through a full review. Do we contract with a private company? I don’t know,” she said.
If the sale goes forward, the city would use bonding capacity from the capital budget — not money from the annual operating budget.
“This would not be from cash on hand or the general budget, it’s not money we could be using for this year’s budget,” she said.
The golf course in the city’s northwestern corner celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023.