Denver has suspended a $20.5 million plan to purchase the Park Hill Golf Course from a private trust because of an “unresolved lease issue” with the course’s operator, officials with Denver Public Works and the trust confirmed to The Denver Post.

But the city isn’t abandoning the plan entirely. Officials still will pursue rights to use a portion of the course as a stormwater detention area as part of a wide-ranging northeast Denver drainage plan, said Nancy Kuhn, the communications director for Denver Public Works.

The revelation, conveyed to stunned members of a community advisory committee Thursday night, throws what had been thought to be a done deal — pending City Council approval — into disarray. The news has left city officials scrambling to secure the land needed to get the drainage project started, and it has cast greater doubt on the property’s future, which has been the subject of a push and pull between desires for commercial or housing development vs. green space.

In short, Clayton Early Learning, an education nonprofit that manages the George W. Clayton Trust and benefits from the $700,000-a-year golf course contract, thought Dallas-based operator Arcis Golf planned to end the lease when it expires at the end of 2018.

It turns out that’s not the case — not yet. And Arcis’ contract gives it until July to tell Clayton of its intention.

“Just recently, they have let us know that they want to take the time they have under the lease to consider that decision” of whether to renew, said Charlotte Brantley, Clayton Early Learning’s president and CEO. “So they’re not ready to give us an answer right now.”

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The city and Clayton announced in September that amid declining golf revenues that risk the nonprofit’s financial security, Denver would acquire the 155-acre golf course as officials and community advocates explored open-space and development prospects on the land.

Brantley said that before then, Arcis had told Clayton informally that it intended to leave the course, which it operates as Park Hill Golf Club, since the contract was a money-loser for the operator.

Under its terms, Arcis has options for two five-year lease extensions and a right of first refusal to purchase the land. The company declined to comment Friday through a spokeswoman.

Those terms were news to Georgia Garnsey, who has represented a pro-open space group, City Park Friends and Neighbors, on the community advisory committee. She had been among those pushing for the city to simplify its purchase agreement and commit to keeping the course as green space of some kind.

“My first reaction is that I feel that I was lied to,” said Garnsey, who didn’t attend Thursday’s meeting but quickly received word. “I never heard anything other than (that) Arcis’ arrangement expired at the end of 2018 — so not to worry, that’s not a problem.”

She added: “I feel deceived and manipulated 10 times more than I did before. And I don’t, frankly, know what to make of it.”

Clayton leader defends approach

Brantley defended her organization’s launch of the community discussion last year to explore the potential uses for the golf course land, which led to the city’s involvement.

“With an understanding that (Arcis was) not likely to re-up it, we really had to be doing our due diligence to consider what our future would look like,” Brantley said, in terms of both the land and providing a stable financial footing for Clayton’s early childhood education programs. “We’re just going to let the holidays come and go and then we’ll see where we are.”

The base value of the city’s proposed 30-year purchase agreement was $20.5 million, but it could have brought upward of $24 million to Clayton, depending on the site’s development potential and priorities set by the city.

In early October, a council committee considered that sale proposal. But since several council members’ questions about its terms were unresolved, Evan Dreyer, Mayor Michael Hancock’s deputy chief of staff, asked the committee to hold the issue over instead of advancing it to the council floor.

For now, Brantley considers the city’s offer on hold until Arcis’ lease considerations are resolved.

Drainage project on course fits into larger plan

Kuhn, from Denver Public Works, says the city cannot wait to begin preparations for the stormwater drainage project.

“Unfortunately, we are now setting that (purchase) proposal aside because of an unresolved lease issue between Clayton and its golf course operator, Arcis,” Kuhn wrote in an email. “The city will proceed toward acquiring only the property it needs for its stormwater detention project.”

Denver Public Works has been in discussions with Clayton for more than two years about using the northeast corner of the golf course for the detention area, one of four key components of its $298 million Platte to Park Hill drainage plan. Those drainage projects have come under fire among some parks advocates and critics of the upcoming Interstate 70 expansion because of their links to the highway plan.

Kuhn said the new approach that city officials will pursue involves obtaining the rights to up to 90 acres of the course — just over half — for the stormwater detention area’s construction, starting in early 2019. Officials plan to initiate a land-rights acquisition ordinance in a council committee next month.

That step allows negotiations and, if needed, the use of eminent domain.

Public works officials have said the detention area itself requires up to 25 acres, but the city will need to shut down more of the golf course during construction as the land in that area is regraded to capture runoff during and after major storms.

The new council proposal “will seek authority to acquire needed property interests, including a permanent easement for water detention and temporary easement for construction/staging,” Kuhn’s email says.

She did not provide details about how much the city expects to pay for those easements or what the terms would be.

The city previously placed an open-space easement on the golf course in the 1990s, and that was among several legal entanglements Denver has had with the trust going back to 1899.