By Ryan Yuenger
ryany@wsjm.com
A once-popular country club and golf course will become a multi-use residential, commercial and recreational development.
The St. Joseph Charter Township Board of Trustees unanimously approved a plan Monday for Southwest Michigan Coastal Ventures to develop the former Berrien Hills Golf Club property along the east bank of the St. Joseph River, south of Napier Avenue.
The 100-acre property will feature 22 single-family estate lots, 127 townhouse units, 40 row houses, 90 apartments, 20 senior cottage units and a 40-unit extended stay hotel, according to the approved plan. Additional features include a brewpub, restaurant, event venue, rain gardens, outdoor recreation areas, trails and a lake. Developers have said many amenities, including businesses, the lake and trails, would be open for public use.
“This property has been a vital and integral part of St. Joseph Township since 1923 when Berrien Hills Golf Club Opened,” said Mark Miller, attorney for Southwest Michigan Coastal Ventures, during an Oct. 18 planning commission meeting. “It’s been closed now for about three years, so it’s kind of like a hundred-acre hole in the community.”
Since the closure of Berrien Hills Golf Club, the property has become something of a nature preserve. There is a bald eagle’s nest on the property, and the former cart paths are a popular place for some in the community to go for a walk and enjoy the riverside. Coastal Ventures Development Director Michael Wood said during the Oct. 18 meeting, developers plan to honor the natural beauty of the property by leaving about 50 percent of the land as open space.
“This development is essentially nature-based,” Wood said. “We’ve done everything we can to honor the site. It’s obviously a wet site, so we have 60 acres of flood plain we have to fill. But, we’ve created this lake … we’ve taken the wetlands that were there and we’ve used the drain site and we’re connecting them to the rain gardens.”
The trustees also took turns offering their thoughts on the development.
“This property and this development is … positioned to give a sense of connection between this river-divided community,” said trustee Tom Milnikel, who also was liaison to the planning commission meeting on the development. “I very much appreciate the care taken and planning for a balance between structure and open space, and this plan provides for an intentional stewardship for the property’s natural features and settings. … “I think this plan offers an amazing potential for a win-win to this township and the greater Twin Cities community.”
Trustee Melissa Hahn suggested the developers use local hires and apprenticeship programs to be used for contracting work, which developers agreed would not be a problem.
Next Steps
After the approval, Wood said it will still be a while before any construction gets started, but now they can move ahead with designing the structures, continuing environmental testing, obtaining permits from the state and Army Corps of Engineers.
“We’ve been working full time,” Wood said. “[But] we wouldn’t necessarily go to the expense and work of doing architecture if we weren’t approved. Now that it’s approved, we can start designing town homes, apartment buildings, senior villas in detail. And now, once we have all those in detail, we have to go back and get each one of those communities approved again in front of the planning commission…. Everything will be done exactly how we described it, but we haven’t done it in detail yet.”
Wood said one of the top priorities is to tear down the former clubhouse of Berrien Hills Golf Club.
“Demolition is pretty high on the list, but have some stuff we need to take care of before we can do that,” he said. “These things take time, but you’ll see more action there in the next six months than you’ve seen in the last three years.”
To see the full development proposal, visit the St. Joseph Township website.
