from golfweek.com
Kauffman: Adelphia meltdown
sidelines Pennsylvania project
Rees Jones-designed layout on hold
Charges of fraud that have rocked corporate America have recently taken its toll on the golf industry.
The latest victim is the Golf Club at Wending Creek Farms in Coudersport, Pa., an estimated $17 million Rees Jones-designed layout that was supposed to be a private playground for Adelphia Communications Corp. and its guests.
In mid-May, however, Adelphia founder and chairman/CEO John Rigas and his son, Tim Rigas, the company’s chief financial officer, resigned amid a cloud of accounting fraud and other improprieties.
Within a couple of weeks, Tim Rigas’ dream development was stopped by interim chairman/CEO Erland Klaibourne. It was just three months from completion.
“We were hoping to open nine holes this fall,” said Ted Powell, Adelphia’s director of construction in charge of the project. “The only thing we’re doing now is erosion control.”
John Rigas, 78, his two sons, Timothy, 46, and Michael, 48, and two other Adelphia executives face federal criminal charges for allegedly using the cable television company as their “personal piggy bank,” according to federal authorities.
The Rigases were arrested July 24 in New York on numerous fraud-related charges. The family members and two additional executives face up to 30 years in prison and could be fined millions of dollars if convicted.
On June 25, Adelphia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after disclosing $2.3 billion in debts were hid from the public, much of which was company-backed loans and rent-free apartments to the Rigas family. It was the fifth-largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Tim Rigas, who has an alleged $700,000 membership to the “invitation only” Golf Club at Briar’s Creek in Johns Island, S.C., wanted to build his world-class 18-hole course for visiting cable TV dignitaries and top Adelphia executives. It was being built on 380 acres of land that John Rigas owned near Coudersport.
For veteran course superintendent Ed Walsh, who was in charge of the property for the past two years, it was a sad farewell to a course he said could have been one of Rees Jones’ finer efforts. Walsh and his crew helped break ground on the course in March 2001.
“It was a beautiful piece of property that had terrific scenery, water and 275 feet of elevation changes,” said Walsh, who has been out of work since the end of May. “We had 10 greens seeded and 5 to 6 tees seeded. We wanted the course to be finished and seeded by mid-August.”
Walsh said the course would have been close to a $20 million project by the time it was completed. More than $1.5 million was spent recently on running utilities to the remote site.
According to the criminal lawsuits, the Rigases used $13 million of Adelphia’s money and 169 acres of company-owned land for the project, but never disclosed it to shareholders or asked for board approval.
Powell said Adelphia is actively seeking an investor to come in and take over the course. Finding a buyer won’t be easy.
With a population of 2,650, Coudersport, located in a remote area of north-central Pennsylvania, doesn’t have the numbers to support a $20 million public course or a high-end private course. Coudersport already has one public course.
The nearest big cities are Buffalo – 2 1/2 hours north – and Pittsburgh, more than 4 hours to the southwest.
“We’d love to see the course get finished,” Powell said. “To make it work, it would have to be a conference center or some kind of hotel resort/timeshare complex. The land’s not conducive to hundreds of homes, but it’s a four-season area with hunting, fishing, snow mobiling. . . . “We’re willing to work with anybody.”