An Austin real estate developer is purchasing the Pine Forest Golf Course in Bastrop with plans to improve it, expand its offerings and have it serve as a park and family attraction in a community that lacks recreational venues.

"We’re buying it more as a gift to the community. Because there are just not enough people playing golf out there to get it to have a cash flow," David Buttross, who is scheduled to close on the golf course on Dec. 1, said. "Our goal is to buy it, continue to run it the way that it’s been run for a while, see if we can improve the condition of the course and then maybe break even someday, which would be nice."

Buttross said he plans on improving the golf course and offering other programs like a pickleball court, Frisbee golf or foot golf. He also plans on having the property serve as an event space that can accommodate 200-300 people for weddings, fraternity and sorority mixers, and corporate functions that can include golf tournaments.

Buttross said he is purchasing the 18-hole golf course property for about $1 million, which includes 180 acres on the Colorado River. He said he has plans to build a dock on the river, and prepare about 60 uncleared acres for "glamping," a glamorous form of camping, and develop walking trails and a nature preserve.

"I’m going to try and fix the place up," he said. "I have four boys, and if I can make the golf course a fun environment for me and my four boys, other moms and dads may want to come out there and have fun with it too. So, I’m feeling like if I can solve that problem out for myself, then I’ll have figured out how to make the golf course a desirable place for people to go and it might actually start making money one of these days."

Buttross said that the purchase of the property make not be a savvy business move but it "makes a lot of sense" as something that is good for the community.

Buttross is an Austin real estate developer that has purchased and sold properties in Central Texas and across the country. He has owned and sold homes in Bastrop and owns several properties in Smithville.

He said as the population continues to grow and Tahitian Village gets developed, the golf course has a chance to become profitable. He said he also plans on providing free rounds of golf and tours to nonprofits in the Austin area to get inner-city children to play golf and enjoy the outdoors.

He said the course’s former owners and managers for the past 27 years will continue to operate the course for another year so club members and customers should see no immediate changes to the program.

Restaurant operators have shown interest in possibly bringing new eatery to the golf course, Buttross said.

"There’s a lot of neat things we can do," Buttross said.

The sale of the Pine Forest Golf Course comes as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department develops a new plan for the 137-acre site at Bastrop State Park that was home to the Lost Pines Golf Course, which operated at the park since the 1930s. The golf course shuttered in 2015 amid financial struggles and has sat vacant, overgrown by grass and weeds, for two years.

The new plan for the site includes an interpretative educational center with a tribute green next door and an amphitheater for outdoor programs to the north, as well as a nature center, outdoor fields, picnic sites, a restored Lake Mina and a new trail system.

Texas Parks and Wildlife estimates the site’s renovation project will cost between $4.2 and $5 million.