Country Club, Kroenke squabble over road extension

The proposed connection of Conley Road to Business Loop 70, which would pass through the northeast edge of Columbia Country Club, is stuck in the rough.
The club is asking the Conley Road Transportation Development District for $4.7 million to compensate it for the land needed to extend the road and to cover the cost of redesigning and reconfiguring the 18-hole course.
The compensation request is the latest development in more than three years of negotiations between the club and the TDD established by developer Stan Kroenke. The bill is much higher than the TDD had anticipated.
“I don’t know if we’ll wind up in court or pull the plug on the road,” Craig Van Matre, the district’s attorney, said. “Either one is a possibility, I suppose.”
Van Matre said he had reason to believe the cost for reconfiguring the golf course would be closer to $1 million.
“You can’t make a TDD pay for something it doesn’t have the money to pay for,” he said.
The TDD, which encompasses Broadway Marketplace, was established in 2005 by Kroenke to pay for the Conley Road connection to Business Loop 70, among other projects, using a half-percent  sales tax levied at the Marketplace’s stores. The stores include WalMart, Lowe’s, Sam’s Club and, eventually, a Hy-Vee grocery store. The TDD has an estimated lifespan of 35 years and total anticipated revenue of $57 million.
“I find it hard to believe they can’t afford [$4.7 million],” Anthony Frazier, the club’s attorney, said.
The connection has been identified in the city’s Major Thoroughfare Plan and the Missouri Department of Transportation’s I-70 improvement study, but the project currently hinges on the TDD’s ability to come to an agreement with the country club.
The TDD paid $30,000 so Columbia Country Club could hire a golf course designer of its choice, Hurdzan/Fry, Columbia Country Club President Jean Leonatti said.
The club calculated $6.3 million, in lost revenue and costs but the offer delivered in late March was $4.7 million, which Leonatti said was “very reasonable.”
“We’re all citizens of Columbia; we understand the congestion at [the U.S. Highway 63 and Interstate 70] intersection, and we want to be helpful, but we also think our golf club needs to be made whole if they’re going to do that,” Leonatti said.
Some of the money would pay for temporary memberships so club members could golf at other clubs during construction and to meet agreements with the course’s operator, Eagle Golf, Frazier said. None of the money could be paid to members because Columbia Country Club is a not-for-profit organization.
Under state law, TDDs have eminent domain authority, another concern of the country club. But Conley Road TDD was established so that the City Council must give the district its consent if it is to use eminent domain to acquire land.
Frazier said that the country club’s contract with Eagle Golf gives the golf course operator the right to terminate the contract if any land is condemned.
“I don’t want to be an alarmist, but it could result in the ultimate closure of the country club, which has been around since 1921,” he said.
Frazier said he hopes a settlement can be reached between the two parties out of court.
“We love our club and would like to keep it as it is,” Frazier said. “But we also live in Columbia and realize we need the road.”
The section of the golf course the connection would pass through affects three holes, including the club’s “signature” hole, No. 12, which has been ranked Columbia’s best hole.
“There’s no way with the land [the TDD] wants to take to keep a par 5 on 12,” Leonatti said.
Before the club was asked to do its own course redesign, the TDD had proposed three plans for the course’s potential redesign, according to documents provided by the club. The second design proposed in 2006 used a parcel of land adjacent to the course that formerly housed a MoDOT storage facility, and that design would have allowed the club to shift holes without moving any of the front nine. Kroenke built a new facility for MoDOT north of town in exchange for the old site, which lies between the course and Lowe’s.
But the TDD came back in May 2008 with a third design that did not include the former MoDOT site.
“Kroenke bought land north of town, built a new facility at great expense, and swapped [with MoDOT],” Van Matre said. “It would have been sheer lunacy to turn around and give that to the golf course.”
Columbia Country Club representatives say taking the MoDOT land off the negotiating table makes them shift the affected holes in such a way that the front nine holes must also be reconfigured, making it a bigger project. The removal of that portion of land from negotiations has caused the impasse, they said. Both sides have raised the specter of possible litigation.
“Just because they say [the MoDOT land] is off the table doesn’t mean it is,” Frazier said. “There is a court order that says the land will be given to the country club to compensate their losses.”
But he added that litigation against a TDD would be somewhat of a new phenomenon.
“There is very little case law in the state of Missouri on TDDs,” Frazier said. “So we’d all be flying a little blind.”
The TDD’s establishing documents filed in Boone County court in 2005 say the TDD will acquire a “portion” of the MoDOT facility in order to “facilitate and make possible” the course’s redesign.
The TDD did not buy and does not own the land, and Van Matre said it was a misunderstanding if the club thought it would be receiving a significant portion of the land. Kroenke could eventually seek to rezone the MoDOT site as commercial land for a possible development next to Broadway Marketplace, Van Matre said.
The TDD has already spent significant taxpayer money on engineering for the road, including a bridge that would be needed to cross Hinkson Creek. If an agreement can’t be reached with the golf course, that’s wasted money, Van Matre said.

“In a situation like this, you can negotiate further, you can litigate, or you can abandon,” Van Matre said. “The economy’s pretty tough right now, and abandoning is not out of the realm of the possible.”
Frazier said the country club’s offer is not a “take it or leave it number.”
“I think what we’re looking for now is finality,” Frazier said. “This has been hanging over our heads for five years, and it has hurt membership efforts.”
The TDD does not need to connect Conley Road to Business Loop 70, but it, the city and MoDOT have all indicated it would be a beneficial project, Van Matre said.
Even if the road is not connected, Van Matre said he is confident the existing infrastructure would support another development on the 18-acre MoDOT site.
Planning and Development director Tim Teddy said if the area is developed, there would have to be further analysis of the traffic needs. With the Hy-Vee store not even operating yet, “The hunch is there’d have to be some improvements done out there,’ he said.
“It’s going to be real tight in there,” Teddy said. “Whatever road is planned, it’s probably going to affect the course to some degree.”
A September 2005 traffic study by Crawford, Bunte, Brammeier on the impact of a development at the site estimated additional traffic flow of 750 to 1,000 vehicles per hour on a typical weekday and 1,000 to 1,400 during the Saturday peak hour. The study recommended pursuing the Conley Road connection for access and circulation. Since then more stores and restaurants have opened on the south side of the commercial area.
“Conley Road should be connected to Business Loop 70; there’s no doubt in my mind that should happen,” Van Matre said. “But I can’t make it so. The city will have to decide how important 
it is.”