BEL-NOR — Proposals to operate one of the oldest public golf courses west of the Mississippi River, or buy it outright from the University of Missouri-ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, are due in three weeks.
On Friday, UMSL released to lease or buy the Normandie Golf Club, the historic course near its campus where the likes of Babe Ruth, Bob Hope and Olympian Babe Didrikson would play when they passed through ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.
UMSL said in January that the company managing the course, a subsidiary of Clayton-based Walters Golf Management, planned to opt out of the $1-a-year lease. The course stopped operating this year.
UMSL, which purchased the property for $1.4 million in 2015, has said it wants the property to remain a golf course. The request for proposals notes that the university has the right to use deed restrictions or preservation easements “to ensure the property remain a golf course or green space.â€
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Proposals are due Feb. 20.
The university also said Friday that it will soon be soliciting proposals from organizations interested in buying or leasing another property nearby: the historic Normandie Hall, at 2794 Normandy Drive. The university purchased the hall’s two structures — formerly known as Incarnate Word Convent and the attached residential space, St. Agnes Hall — from the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word in the early 1990s and initially used them as campus housing, the honors college and office space.
The buildings have been vacant for several years, and UMSL has said they require some $11 million in rehab work. About five years ago, the university proposed tearing down the structures. But neighbors and historic preservation activists rallied to save the buildings, and the university relented a few months later.
“We believe there will be significant interest in renovating Normandie Hall for a use compatible with the surrounding neighborhood,†Interim Chancellor and Provost Kristin Sobolik said in a message distributed Friday.
