An expansion for the Mayhew campus of East Mississippi Community College may be just around the corner. While the school’s interest in purchasing the bankrupt Columbus Country Club has been discussed publicly since April 2011, the purchase could finally become official.
EMCC was the only group to put in a bid for the property, according to Craig Geno, attorney for the Columbus Country Club. Deadline for bids was Sept. 14. The auction is scheduled for Oct. 5.
Jason Browne, publications coordinator for EMCC, said the school’s administrators were not ready to comment on its bid.
In August, Will Cooper, a country club board member, confirmed the school had submitted a bid, although he did not reveal the amount of the bid. Then as now, EMCC President Dr. Rick Young would not comment on the offer.
As of Thursday morning, Cooper said he had not had any contact with EMCC representatives and he could not speculate on the school’s plans for the property.
EMCC board members discussed purchasing the club and its golf course in April 2011. After a 6-5-1 vote to pursue purchasing the club, board members then voted unanimously not to proceed with the purchase. In June, court documents showed the school had submitted an undisclosed offer to purchase the club, which owes money to three primary secured creditors: $1,520,390.77 to a group of five banks, $190,672.45 to Cadence Bank and $300,000 to Columbus businessman David Shelton. The three lenders hold the first, second and third mortgages on the club’s real estate, respectively.
Shelton submitted a bankruptcy plan that included his purchasing the club for $1.3 million and liquidation of the club’s assets. Shelton, who was not listed in the club’s original plan to pay its creditors, was long-rumored to have intentions to submit a bid in the auction of the club. Shelton could not be reached for comment Thursday morning.
Although Young is not speaking on the terms of the bid, he did confirm the school’s renewed interest in the property during a July meeting of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors.
“(The Columbus Country Club) has a 20,000-square-foot facility ready to go for our hotel and restaurant management program and for community and civic uses,” Young in July. “We also have a golf team that could benefit from this facility. If we could get the property, we could move the hotel and restaurant program immediately. We have been approved for a turf management program and we could also have a collegiate tennis team. It would free up some space for our nursing program and it would buy us some time.”
The Columbus Country Club, which has operated at its present location since 1923, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 3, 2011. The club’s board of trustees filed a motion Aug. 15 requesting the property be sold at an auction. The proceedings are being handled through U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District in Aberdeen.
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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