In this archive photo, William Jimenez of Calumet practices before a game at Gary’s South Gleason Park golf course.
A developer has made an offer on the South Gleason golf course in Gary that the city is weighing on.
Gary offers fun redevelopment offers on the historic but little-used South Gleason golf course just south of the Borman Expressway in his Midtown neighborhood.
Former Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson launched the 18-hole, par 71 public golf course near Indiana University Northwest in 2018, when Gary was setting a budget hole of $ 17 million.
Last August, former mayor Jerome Prince was informed of an offer on the property, he said on Friday in a radio interview on WLTH.
“There are several city assets that have been on sale for a while,” he said.
Originally known as Riverside Park, South Gleason Park dates back to the 1920s and houses a club house designed by the famous architect George Maher. But lately the golf course on the south side of the Little Calumet River has suffered from inactivity and the city has been forced to subsidize its operations, Prince said.
“From a data drive perspective, one of the things that really came up was our numbers,” Prince said on WLTH. “Comparatively speaking, the closest golf course is Turkey Creek, which played 55,000 games of golf there compared to our 5,000 in 2018. This in itself suggests that we should have taken a different look at the golf course.”
The incoming administration negotiated with the potential buyer last year, but no agreements have been made. The city found the offer too low and submitted a counter offer which was rejected.
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