Retreat By Hagadone Praised Corporation Wins 10-Year Renewal For Resort’s Floating Golf Green

Hagadone Corp. won a 10-year lease renewal for its floating golf green from the state Land Board on Tuesday, and Gov. Phil Batt praised the company for backing off from an attempt to eliminate a requirement for public access to 500 feet of Sanders Beach.

“I think they wisely withdrew that proposal,” Batt said.

The access requirement was part of a deal engineered 10 years ago by then-Gov. Cecil Andrus. It was included in the lease that allows the trademark floating 14th hole of The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course to be anchored on state-owned waters in Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Batt recalled visiting with resort owner Duane Hagadone in Coeur d’Alene, and being impressed with the property.

“I was supposed to play golf but it was raining, we couldn’t,” Batt said. “I tell you, he’s proud of that golf course. Every little nick in it he wants fixed.”

Batt said he agreed with company officials that the unusual floating green is “tremendously important for the community and the state.”

“However, it is mainly for people coming in,” he said. For everyone, “I think it’s important to maintain access to the beach.”

Hagadone’s revised request for its lease renewal asked to continue the lease under all the same terms and conditions, with two exceptions: The company wanted rents capped at current rates, and it asked for exclusive rights to salvage golf balls that go flying into the lake.

State Superintendent of Schools Anne Fox said, “I’d vote to accept the proposal from Mr. Hagadone. It looks like it’s quite a compromise.”

But other Land Board members weren’t comfortable with the rent cap. Rent is set at 2 percent of gross greens fees, or $15,000, whichever is more. This year, the company is paying about $32,000.

The idea of tying lease rates to revenues is to allow the state’s return to grow - or drop - along with the market, they said.

Batt said the company had a point when it argued that the more it spends to upgrade the course, the higher greens fees must go and the higher its rents go, regardless of whether it’s making money. “There’s a big difference between gross receipts and profits,” he said.

The governor said he’d be more comfortable with the idea of capping the rent if some inflation factor was included, and board members said they’d throw in the exclusive golf-ball salvage rights.

Russell Westerberg, Boise lobbyist for the company, said that would be acceptable.

The Land Board then voted unanimously to set the rent cap at $32,000, plus increases each year to match the rise in the consumer price index.

Westerberg said afterward that he thought internal miscommunications at the company led to the proposal to end the public access requirement to the beach.

The company’s original proposal asked that it be able to end public access with 90 days notice if it decides to develop its beachfront land.

Said Westerberg, “It is not what the owner of the company wanted, at least.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo