Page 26 - Green Builder Magazine Nov-Dec 2017 Issue

CREDIT: FREEHOLD COMMUNITIES
Fore plan. Environmental conditions and outside-the-box thinking are turning a Southern California subdivision’s golf course into an
eco-convenient olive garden.

It’s a Beautiful Day

in the Agri-hood

There’s a new day on the green as golf balls are replaced by olive groves.

BY GREEN BUILDER STAFF is master planned for 1,150 moderately priced single-family homes,
A hole golf course at a Palm Springs subdivision is being residents to Palm Springs.
FTER MORE THAN A DECADE IN LIMBO, an 18-
townhouses and condominiums, and will draw in about 2,500 new
Miralon’s original developer, SunCal, halted the project in 2005 after
transformed into 70 acres of olive groves and other
drought-tolerant fixtures. The switch is being made as
its financer, Lehman Brothers, foreclosed on the property. SunCal had
part of the project’s development into an “agri-hood.”
According to Brad Shuckhart, president of the
golf course. When Freehold bought the land in 2016, it had to decide
California division of Freehold Communities, when complete the 300- completed about half of the project, including the professional-grade
what to do with those 18 holes. “We considered revitalizing the golf
acre Miralon subdivision will be one of the nation’s largest agricultural course,” Shuckhart says. “But we wanted a broader appeal. There are a
neighborhoods, a locale where new homes are built in close proximity lot of championship golf courses out here. We wanted something that
to community farms. Miralon, which breaks ground in early 2018, would attract as many different factions of buyer as possible.”

24 GREEN BUILDER November/December 2017 www.greenbuildermedia.com

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