By David F. Rooney
Six months of work negotiating with Citrus Capital Partners Ltd. to take on a multi-million-dollar lease for the Revelstoke Golf Course vanished in a puff of smoke when the Alberta-based investment firm pulled out of the deal this weekend.
“We thought they had a great vision,” Mayor Mark McKee said Tuesday afternoon, September 1. “But we could not come to an agreement.”
He said the deal was worth between $2 million and $7 million and if it had gone through it would have left the golf course in the hands of a competent and forward-looking company. And it would have protected local taxpayers who might otherwise find themselves on the hook for the work that needs to be done on the course and its facilities.
“It’s not a simple, cut-and-dried project,” McKee said.
The golf course is a troubled entity. Its clubhouse — all that remains of the race track that once stood on that land beside the Columbia River — is in need of a major renovation. It has other issues, too, but Citrus was regarded as the white knight that could have resolved them.
What happens now?
McKee said he is talking to the club executive and the City-appointed Golf Course Task Force to discuss the next steps that must be taken. One of those steps will almost certainly be an exploration of other potentially interested parties.
