Creative Catering is negotiating to buy the clubhouse at the St. Lucie Trail Golf Club in St. Lucie West for a restaurant, catering facility and banquet hall.
Creative Catering Chef and Owner Andrew Huszar has been operating the Lakeview Bar & Grille and Lakeview Terrace banquet hall in the clubhouse since last summer.
The proposed sale of the 24,000-square-foot clubhouse is one of several deals in the works at the 126-acre golf course that is among St. Lucie West’s signature features.
Golf course owner CGI St. Lucie LLC of Palm City also has a contract to sell nearly 5 acres to the St. Lucie West Services District for stormwater drainage ponds designed to reduce flooding in Country Club Estates.
As part of the $105,750 deal, CGI St. Lucie will grant the district an easement over 4.6 acres that will double as a drainage pond and an “aqua driving range,” city records show.
CGI St. Lucie also intends to carve out the 1.7-acre tennis facility and .45-acre pool area to set the stage for a potential sale to the County Club Estates Homeowners Association, city records show.
In addition, the 4-acre parking lot and driveway will be dedicated to an association to provide for shared access and parking for the clubhouse, tennis courts, pool and golf course.
The clubhouse was built in 1989 as part of the St. Lucie West Country Club.
CGI St. Lucie bought the golf course in March 2018 for $1.5 million from PGA St. Lucie Inc.
Applications to change the land use and zoning of the 1.1-acre clubhouse property and the nearby facilities are winding their way through the city approval process.
Those changes are needed, in part, to allow a variety of businesses to operate in the clubhouse separately from the golf course, city records show.
In addition to a restaurant and banquet hall, the clubhouse includes a golf pro shop and offices.
City planners are also reviewing new plat documents that will be required to legally extricate the clubhouse and surrounding 7.7 acres from the rest of the golf course.
The City Council is to review the land use and zoning changes on March 25 and April 8. The requests were endorsed by the city Planning and Zoning Board on March 5.
“Creative Catering decided that they would buy the clubhouse facility, maintain it as it is operating today, as it has historically operated,” said Brad Currie, a planner representing CGI St. Lucie.
“That was a win-win for my client — the owner of the clubhouse and golf course — as well as Creative Catering and the neighbors as a whole,” Currie said during the March 5 meeting.
A meeting at the clubhouse on Feb. 28 about the proposed changes attracted about 100 homeowners, Currie said.
“This proposal was well received at the neighborhood meeting,” Currie told the board.
Trivia night at the Lakeview Bar and Grille that evening also attracted 70 people, so the venue is popular, Currie said.
Michael Verdi, a homeowner in Presidential Cove, said he was concerned about the land use and zoning changes because there are no guarantees the overall property will remain a golf course.
“I welcome the restaurant,” Verdi said during the March 5 public hearing. “But it leaves us open to so many other things.”