Fort Sheridan golf report headed to Lake Co. forest board

Some two months after an advisory group made its recommendation, Lake County Forest Preserve District commissioners could soon debate whether to build a new golf course at the Fort Sheridan preserve.

A 47-page draft report summarizing the committee’s yearlong discussions and its advice to seek construction proposals from private golf-course operators has been released to the various members of the group for review. It next will be released to the forest board, which ultimately will decide what to do at the Highland Park-area preserve.

A timetable hasn’t yet been set, said forest district board member Carol Calabresa, who led the advisory group.

Fellow Commissioner Michelle Feldman, who also served on the Fort Sheridan committee, read the draft report and called it a “very fair representation of what occurred over the last year.”

Feldman credited Susan Parks, who mediated the committee’s meetings and wrote the report, for sticking to the facts and not making any assumptions about what was said or decided.

“Because as soon as you have any bias, it’s over with,” Feldman said.

An 18-hole golf course was part of the roughly 250-acre Fort Sheridan property when the forest district acquired it from the U.S. Army in the 1990s. The deal included a promise to keep a course open there forever.

The original layout was torn up in 2003 to make way for a planned high-end course, but that plan was scuttled after cost estimates came in millions of dollars higher than originally discussed.

No golf has been played at Fort Sheridan since then. Many forest board members have said the decline in golf play and the recession have made such a project financially unfeasible, while others say they must have golf in some form to meet the terms of the Army deal.

The delay has angered many area residents and golf fans who said they were promised a course when they bought their homes.

The advisory committee, which included representatives from several area government agencies and a Fort Sheridan resident, couldn’t settle on a single desired use for the site.

Some members insisted an 18-hole course should be built, while others favored turning the property into a traditional, open-space preserve.

A hybrid proposal to build a nine-hole course and trails received more support than any other option during the committee’s final meeting in November. The group recommended the forest board seek construction and operation proposals from golf management firms for such a project.

Ralph Pfaff, the lone Fort Sheridan resident on the advisory committee, read an early draft of the report and praised Parks’ effort, although he said he would’ve liked some more historical perspective in the document.

As for what the forest board will do with the report — and eventually the preserve itself — Pfaff isn’t optimistic he’ll be hitting the links in his neighborhood anytime soon.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I suspect they will take the same position that they’ve taken all along ... that they don’t want to do it,” Pfaff said.

Pfaff said he and his fellow Fort Sheridan residents were willing to settle on a nine-hole course. Giving up on golf completely, however, is not an option, he said.

Highland Park Mayor Michael Belsky said seeking construction proposals could provide lower cost estimates for the proposed project, which forest district officials have said could cost $14.3 million.

City officials continue to be vocal proponents of golf at Fort Sheridan, Belsky said, and the hybrid nine-hole plan is a good compromise.

Feldman, who has opposed nine-hole golf at Fort Sheridan and suggested giving the land back to the Army, said she expects the board will seek construction proposals but doesn’t know if any firms will make offers.

“I would never invest in that,” she said of a nine-hole plan. “I’m no golf expert, but I just don’t see that happening.”