With frost on the pumpkin, the Chicago area’s golf season comes to another fitful, weather-dependent close. Many played the Calumet Country Club in the south suburbs this year, and they’re wondering if they’ll be back.
The course, a squarish 127-acre property with the prestigious pedigree of a Donald Ross design, is eyed for development into something that pays better than golf. The owner, Diversified Partners of Scottsdale, Arizona, had wanted to build about 800,000 square feet of warehouses on the property.
Community opposition over the loss of open space and the addition of soot-spewing trucks stirred up a storm that Walt Brown Jr., CEO of Diversified, did not foresee.
Calumet Country Club, northwest of 175th Street and Dixie Highway, had been part of Homewood, where Brown thought he was dealing with friendly public officials. But when word about his plan spread, residents descended on public meetings, and officials rejected the project.
Brown sued and, as part of a settlement, Homewood de-annexed the property, making it a patch of unincorporated Cook County. That left Brown free to turn to neighboring Hazel Crest for a zoning deal and subsidies he needs for water and sewer lines.
His strategy to get annexation into Hazel Crest is emerging, murkily. Brown has added a couple of local partners, Vince Bass and Jerry Lewis, who have formed Catalyst Consulting Group.
Bass and Lewis told residents in an online meeting their company will eventually be the majority owner of the development, although how that will work is unexplained. Brown, as head of a company dealing in development and property management, has the access to capital for any work needed. Bass is a self-employed marketing executive who did outreach for former Gov. Bruce Rauner. Lewis is CEO of JLL Construction Services.
“To Walt’s credit, he gave us an opportunity because he’s not from here,” Bass said during the meeting.
The new partners are showing residents schemes for a sort of town center/fun zone encasing an industrial hive of perhaps a dozen buildings. They said there could be a factory for manufactured homes. A hotel, aquaponic farm, water park, sports fields, walking paths, fountains — they’re all in a fanciful perimeter. The plan, as seen in a video they posted, gives little attention to how all those pedestrians interact with steady truck traffic. There are good reasons industrial tracts are set off by themselves.
Then there is market reality. Brown got the property for $3.3 million in 2020 but griped about Homewood officials suggesting he explore non-industrial uses. He said he looked at the possibilities and only warehouses made sense. Now there’s a mélange of uses.
Brown didn’t return a call last week. Lewis did, insisting that Catalyst Consulting is now the developer and declining to discuss Brown. “Once we procure our agreements with the local municipalities, we will tell how it’s feasible and the [financial] commitments we have,” Lewis said. He called it a “holistic” development, not merely warehouses.
The key is Hazel Crest, which adjoins the golf course on three sides. The group fighting the project, South Suburbs for Greenspace, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get emails about it. Group leader Liz Varmecky shared emails from village attorney John Murphey that were sharply critical of the project’s design, prospects and appeal to Hazel Crest.
“No lender is going to lend money to this project based on the speculative proposed perimeter uses. Construction and permanent financing will only be obtained based on the industrial warehouse uses,” Murphey told Village President Vernard Alsberry Jr.
Alsberry verified the emails as authentic but said not to read much into them. Murphey was just “playing devil’s advocate,” he said. “We have not gotten any request to annex the property. We have been sitting, waiting to see if there is any proposal to move on,” he said. Alsberry assailed the prior all-industrial proposal but said he’s open to seeing a new plan.
Murphey, however, closed one email with a variation of a quote attributed to the late basketball coach John Wooden: “Don’t mistake activity for achievement.”
If Brown or anyone else calling the shots wants to win friends and influence people, they might start by paying back taxes on the golf course. With interest, the Cook County Treasurer’s office reports that more than $660,000 is due.
Meanwhile, the outlook for continued golf is good there, since it’s the only way to make money for the time being. The website made it official: 2023 deals and passes are available.
Just play through any developers who can’t get out of the rough.
