Marty Gordon
Contributing writer
The fairway on hole one at The Meadows Golf Course and Swim Club features a nice view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The property’s days as a golf club are likely over as new owner, David Hagan (Shah Development), said that keeping the course open is not in the company’s plans.
The Meadow Golf and Swim Club has a new owner, and its days as a golf course are probably done. Shah Development of Christiansburg purchased the 115 acres at auction on Tuesday. Shah’s David Hagan said the development company had plans going into the purchase, and it did not include keeping the property as it is now.
“We have a lot of different ideas, but one is not to keep it as a golf course,” he said Wednesday.
Shah Development, who has been in business for 15 years, is part of the Shelor Automotive group. Almost 100 bidders signed up Tuesday but few made offers. Shah and Hagan purchased the 115 acres for $787,500. The foreclosure sale was conducted by Woltz & Associates.
Initially, a total of nine parcels were offered separately with the grand total of all those sales combined for the opening bid for the entire golf course.
In addition, all of the former golf course’s equipment and personal property such as golf carts and mowers were sold separately.
“Golf courses have been going down especially in our area with many struggling and being put up for sale,” Hagan said. “So, we just didn’t think it would survive.”
While he would not unveil any of the development company’s plans, he again echoed they would not keep it as a golf course.
“But if there’s someone that would like to lease it from us to do that (operate a golf course), I am open to it,” he said.
Shah had already purchased 10 acres of frontage land to the 110 acres. Previously, there had been a request to the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors to rezone the property so residential homes could be built there. Currently the zoning is for a community business and would require the change in order to build any type of single- or multi-family homes.
The supervisors held a public hearing on the matter and are scheduled to vote on the rezoning of the property at its meeting Tuesday, Sept. 25. Shah has 45 days to finalize the purchase.
Another company Hagan co-owns, H.S. development, bought the old Blacksburg High School from Montgomery County in April for $3 million. While no plans have been finalized, the group has said that it would like to open some sort of senior living facility while also developing part of the property for public/recreational use. Those plans also hinge on the property being rezoned.