The owner of Meadowbrook Golf Course wants everyone to know he is not a willing seller of his property.



During an interview in the clubhouse of the nine hole golf course founded by his great grandfather in 1933, Bruce Campbell asked Patch to get that message out to everyone and anyone who will listen.



"We don't want to sell it! Underline that and put an explanation point on it. I'm not ready to retire," the 62-year-old fourth generation golf course owner/operator said. Bruce Campbell and his family are living a small business nightmare, following the vote last week by the Phoenixville Area School District Board to take the 52 acre golf course under the laws of eminent domain.



"I think it's wrong on so many fronts, it's sickening," Campbell told Patch a few hours before he along with other Campbell family members, golf club members, a planning commission chairman and golf club users filled a meeting of the Phoenixville Area School District Board of Directors.



Campbell and his family plan to fight the acquisition which he says he never agreed to. It will put him out of a business he has been part of since birth. "I started playing golf here when I was four." Campbell grew up to take over the nine hole private golf course (which is open to the public for $15 per round) from his father, who took it over from his grandfather, who took it over from the great grandfather who started the course in 1933.



The Campbell family has owned the land for 117 years. 23 days from now the Phoenixville Area School District will own the land, unless a court reverses the process. PASD officials tell Patch they don't see that effort being successful. District administrators say the PASD hired a team of experts in land acquisitions to guide them through the process of looking for and purchasing a site to build an early education center for preschool-grade one students and an adjacent elementary school for grades 2-5. The district says student population projections and township restrictions that make expanding East Pikeland elementary impossible are the reasons behind the plans for the new "super school" as several members of the pubic called it during Thursday's board meeting.



After a 30 day review period which began last Friday, the forced sale of the land will go before an independent review panel and a judge who will set the sale price. The Campbell family says they will not get anything close to what the land is worth.



"I get people coming in here all the time asking what I want for it," Campbell told Patch. "I tell them that it's not for sale, but if they want a figure it would be $8 million." Campbell compared what the school district has claimed about his sale price offer to someone who owns a classic car filling up at a gas station. "Someone who owns a classic car and is filling his tank and someone asks 'hey what would you want for it?' The owners says it's not for sale. The guy says yeah, but if it was, what would you want for it." That's how Campbell says that's basically how he sees the conversations with the school district.







