[This report has been updated since its first posting on February 1. The updated paragraphs appear in boldface type.]
The developer of the Dormie Club — and would-be developer of Pine Forest — has failed to meet the job-creation goals called for in a $500,000 grant that helped bring Moore County water to the upscale golf course development under construction off NC Highway 73. But the state agency that provided the funds is more interested in seeing the promised jobs created than in recouping the cash.
The North Carolina Rural Center grant that paid more than one-quarter of the cost of bringing water down NC Highway 73 from Eastwood was predicated on a simple formula: $10,000 per job. Dormie Club developer MHK Ventures, Inc. pledged to create 50 full-time jobs within a year after the project was complete. The deadline was December 31, and the job count stood at 15, not 50, according to Walter J. MacKey, Jr., a principal in MHK.
Responding to a Rural Center request for information on the number of jobs created, MacKey, in a letter to engineering firm Hobbs-Upchurch and Associates, said the development of Dormie Club had “been slowed down by construction delays, the recession, and bad weather.”
While the Dormie Club golf course is substantially complete, the club is operating out of a temporary clubhouse, and no residential properties have been developed. MacKey’s letter indicated another seven employees would be added in March, bringing the job total to twenty-two.
The 13,000 square-foot permanent clubhouse is expected to be finished by mid-2013, and the club will be fully operational by year-end 2013, Mackey writes, at which time it will be able to meet its commitment to provide 50 full-time jobs. The developer notes that his Thistle Golf Club project in Sunset Beach was completed in 2010 and now employs more than 50.
Reports filed with the Rural Center by the county indicate that the extension of the county’s water system to serve the Dormie Club cost just over $1.6 million, of which Mackey Development paid $609,000; the county paid $564,000, and the Rural Center grant covered $428,000.
However, it appears that this total may include a booster station and water line and tank upgrades required to bring water from the East Moore Water District to the county systems, benefitting not only future Dormie Club water users, but existing water users in Pinehurst and Seven Lakes.
Public Works Director Dennis Brobst told The Times on Wednesday that no county money was used to pay for the water line extension to the Dormie Club.
Grant extensions common
A three-way agreement that links MHK, the County, and the Rural Center allows the economic development agency to recapture the grant monies if the Dormie Club fails to meet its jobs commitment, but there’s little indication the Rural Center is in a rush to make that move.
Fred Hobbs, of Hobbs-Upchurch, which is charged with administering the the Dormie Club grant on Moore County’s behalf, told The Times that it is not unusual, particularly in difficult economic times, for the Rural Center to extend the job creation deadline for two, three, or even four years.
“We’ve had these projects that have gone into the fourth and fifth years,” Hobbs said. “The only thing that would give pause to the Rural Center, would be if there were no golf course, no jobs, no activity. They would look askance at that.”
Julie Haigler Cubeta, Senior Director of the Center’s Physical Infrastructure Office, confirmed Hobbs’ point.
“Many companies are having a hard time meeting their employment pledges,” she told The Times. “We have extended deadlines out for a number of them. It’s the economy.”
“We want to create the jobs,” Cubeta said. “We don’t really want the money back.”
Dormie Club & Pine Forest Linked
Dormie Club developer MHK Ventures is currently seeking PUD-Hamlet rezoning for a nearby 1,700-acre tract that it plans to develop into Pine Forest, a mixed residential and commercial development with three golf courses, 700-800 homes, a resort hotel and conference center and two shopping areas.
Pine Forest will also feature a private wastewater treatment plants — a first for Moore County — which will reclaim treated wastewater for the irrigation of golf courses and common areas. The treatment plant will also handle effluent from Dormie Club, which has soils that are in many cases unsuitable for septic fields. Initially, waste will be transferred from the County’s sewer system to the Pine Forest plant, so that it has enough waste to process and produces the irrigation water the developer will need to establsih its golf courses.
If the rezoning is approved, MHK has pledged to pay $3 million toward the cost of adding 500,000 gallons of additional capacity to the county water system to supply the needs of its residents and visitors.
Under the proposed water agreement between MHK?and Moore County — which has not yet been approved by the Board of Commissioners — the county would pledge to work with MHK to seek federal and state grants to help pay for the cost of bringing county water to the development.
The NC Rural Center would be a possible source of such funding.
