A Freeland real estate investor made it public this week that he intends to purchase the Holmes Harbor Golf Course and some surrounding properties and redevelop the area into a destination.
At a meeting of the Holmes Harbor Sewer District board of commissioners, real estate developer Mark Schuster told a gathering of about 20 people that he is negotiating to buy the course, its clubhouse and house sites just off the 18th fairway and 11th tee from former basketball star and developer Jack Sikma. If he goes through with the purchase, Schuster said he will likely build new, cottage-style homes on the housing sites, remodel the clubhouse, promote the golf course, build a private community dock at the waterfront, and construct a waterfront inn or townhouses.
But as he learned from the sewer board, the district’s lack of cash and the absence of a procedure with which to guarantee sewer hookups to developers could be the one hurdle that trips up the deal.
Schuster, who said he’s excited to “put a new face on the Holmes Harbor area,” attended the meeting in hopes of getting written or verbal assurances from the district that he could obtain between 36 and 42 new residential hookups for his project. Because some of the property he wants to purchase was not included in the district’s utility improvement district in 1995 — when the sewage treatment plant was last expanded — it was not figured into the 500 connections the plant can handle.
While only half those connections have been made, district attorney Mike Ruark said neither he nor the district can give any guarantees without doing months of study.
“Nothing you can close on,” Ruark said.
Though the property purchase and development plans were greeted with enthusiasm by the district’s board and a number of community residents at the meeting, board president Stan Walker told Schuster that he and another land developer — who is interested in having 29 new hookups of his own — will have to foot the bill for a feasibility study that would determine whether the district can offer the connections. They would also have to pay for all the work needed to make the connections.
Following the meeting, Schuster said he is happy to pay a reasonable amount of money to get these things done. But he also noted that if it takes more than a few months to get a guarantee on the sewer hookups, he likely will not be able to purchase Sikma’s property.
“We cannot wait months to know that,” he said Friday.
However, Schuster said he is optimistic. A fifth-generation Northwest resident, Schuster said he and his company, the Schuster Group, is interested in making the Holmes Harbor area a destination for visitors and islanders. He said he hopes to succeed where previous developers have failed by working closely with community members and the sewer district, by marketing the property and the golf course, and studying the real estate market to determine what sorts of homes will sell in the area.
Schuster founded his company in 1989. Among its development projects are the Parkside Plaza Shopping Center in Auburn and the Madison Center in Seattle. Schuster lives part-time in Freeland and said he plans to continue living on the island whether he is able to close the deal on the Holmes Harbor properties or not.
