The Greening of the Gold Coast

[STT757]

IF you are rich enough, or connected enough, or even just good enough to eventually tee off on the second hole at Liberty National Golf Club, you will have the exquisite experience of being able to aim your shot right at the Statue of Liberty. And from the green of the 170-yard par-3 hole, with Lady Liberty standing in a semiprofile, her right arm extended south toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, it will look as if America's symbol of freedom is actually tending the pin.

So, what price Liberty? An initiation fee of $400,000, for starters, not to mention annual membership and greens fees. Fireworks around the harbor will mark the opening of the course, along with Independence Day, on July 4.

Two miles south, along the same rapidly changing Hudson County shoreline, sits the Bayonne Golf Club, a surreally realistic but entirely man-made Scottish links-style course that also overlooks the water and, in the windy tradition of links golf, will be subject to the harbor's blustery conditions. Initiation into the Bayonne club, scheduled to open on Memorial Day, is a relative bargain at $150,000.

With acquisition, construction and other costs put at $129 million for Liberty National and about $100 million for Bayonne, the two courses are among the most expensive ever built.

"Both courses are spectacular," said Jay Mottola, executive director of the Metropolitan Golf Association, who added that Liberty National's initiation fee is near the top of the scale for the region, and that even Bayonne's is very high. "I've had the opportunity to walk both courses, and I think they're going to both be recognized immediately as outstanding courses."

The nearly simultaneous opening of the two emerald gems, built on brownfields, represents a new phase in the development of the coveted stretch of waterfront between Bayonne and the George Washington Bridge known as New Jersey's Gold Coast. Whereas much of the building boom that has continued nearly uninterrupted for much of last two decades has involved office towers in Jersey City's so-called Wall Street West, and condominium villages and high-rise apartments taken up by young professionals and empty nesters farther north, Liberty National and Bayonne Golf herald the arrival of the true leisure class on the Hudson County waterfront, if only for four-hour visits before a helicopter ride back to Manhattan.

This golf mini-boom, which local officials say could also include two public courses within the next five years, is all the more remarkable considering that the closest thing to a golf course that the densely populated, traditionally blue-collar Hudson County has had up to now was a nine-hole pitch-and-putt course on a desolate spot off Route 440 in Jersey City.

"I guess, over all, it certainly reflects the coming of age of the Hudson River Gold Coast in New Jersey," said James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. "The gentrification, the development of Wall Street West, really to the critical mass of higher-income people make it economically desirable to develop those two golf courses. And then those golf courses become an amenity that enhances the overall market desirability of the entire waterfront zone."

All That Glitters Is Green

Indeed, some of those same alchemists who turned what was once a waterfront rust belt of rotting piers and abandoned industrial sites into gold are the ones now responsible for its greening.

The Applied Companies, of Hoboken, which has built thousands of residential units on the Gold Coast, is a partner in Liberty National with Willowbend Development Company of Mashpee, Mass., whose chairman is Reebok International's founder, Paul Fireman. Adjacent to the golf course, the project will also include the Residences at Liberty National: three condominium towers of 33, 45 and 50 stories set to open in late 2008, billed on Applied's Web site as a "super premium luxury condominium community."

But while it makes sense to view development of the two golf courses as a logical continuation of the waterfront's ongoing gentrification, the reality may not be so simple. The golf courses' developers are not counting on the surrounding population for a significant share of their membership.

"This isn't something for everyone," said Dan Fireman, a former college golfer who is president of Willowbend and the son of Paul Fireman.

Applied's president, David Barry, said the golf courses grew out of several factors, including an opportunity to make use of silt from recent port-dredging projects around the harbor demanded by ever deeper generations of tankers and container ships. By offering their properties as so-called upland disposal sites, the developers were able to offset their costs with fees they were paid to accept the dredge material. The silt, along with mountains of construction debris and topsoil, was then used to cover up contaminants from the sites' previous industrial uses, and to shape the courses' fairways, greens, rough and bunkers.

"Is it linked to gentrification of the Gold Coast?" Mr. Barry said of golf's arrival. "In some regard. But it's also independent of the Gold Coast."

Part of the 165-acre Liberty National, for example, sits atop an old tank farm and a site where United States Army Reserve truck drivers received blacktop and off-road training. The Bayonne course, laid out over 130 acres, sits on a 38-acre municipal landfill and a tract formerly owned by PSE&G that was once considered for a nuclear power plant.

In Bayonne's case, the developers received about $30 per cubic yard for 700,000 cubic yards of material from four harbor dredging jobs, said Carolyn Vadino, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw the dredging projects. A partner in the Bayonne project, OENJ Cherokee Bayonne, is a subsidiary of Cherokee Investment Partners of Raleigh, N.C., which specializes in brownfields redevelopment using dredge materials. Rich Ochab, a Cherokee spokesman, said the cost of preparing and placing the dredge material on the site exceeded what Cherokee was paid to accept it.

Cherokee was bought out of the Bayonne project last year by its partner, Empire Golf Inc., of Rancho Murieta, Calif., and the companies are in the process of severing their ties.

"We knew that if we were fully in charge of the development of the golf course, we'd have our own timetable," said Eric Bergstol, Empire's president and the course designer.

Mr. Ochab said it was always envisioned that the partnership would dissolve.

Whirlwind Tee-Offs

Rather than Hudson County residents, the main target of both golf courses is Wall Street, which is why each will have its own helipad and ferry service to whisk executives back to the boardroom after a round of shot-making — and deal-making — on oases of fescue and bent grass that could well be visible from their corner offices in Lower Manhattan.

In that sense, at least, the two golf courses were developed on the Gold Coast for the same three reasons that many of the residential and office projects were: location, location, location. Just as the demand for housing and office space on the waterfront has been a function of nearness to Manhattan — a three-minute PATH ride — so is the marketability of the golf courses.

And marketable they certainly are.

For members of Liberty National, their guests, and possibly touring professionals (if the club succeeds in attracting a major tournament), a round of golf promises to be nothing short of spectacular. The 7,400-yard course combines parkland and links-style holes atop a man-made plateau 50 feet above the harbor, designed by the renowned golf architect Robert Cupp and the PGA pro Tom Kite.

The course's namesake national monument is visible in its almost phosphorescent patina from nearly every tee and green. Adrian Davies, a former European tour player who is the club's director of golf development, said Mr. Cupp repositioned the 18th green to ensure that the view of the Statue of Liberty would not be obstructed by the 50,000-square-foot clubhouse.

The Bayonne course, built in the spirit of the Old Course at Troon and other Scottish links courses, is visually striking, with no trees or cart paths on the steep rises and rough areas between its sharply undulating fairways. Though golfers will often face a stiff wind, an uneven lie or fatigue from walking the hilly course, the bowls sculptured by earthmovers around many of the fairways and greens promise at least a few favorable bounces per round.

Like Liberty National, Bayonne also offers views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and Staten Island — as well as some of the shipping cranes and scrap yards that still do business around the harbor.

Bayonne city officials are hoping that the course will help market the former Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne, a two-mile earthen pier rechristened the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor in 2002, after being decommissioned by the Army and turned over to the city for redevelopment. Its civilian uses already include a Royal Caribbean cruise ship port, plus film and television studio space. A 450-unit town -house village is scheduled to break ground this spring.

Up to now, Bayonne has lagged behind its northern neighbors in developing the Gold Coast. By contrast, projects in Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, West New York and North Bergen in Hudson County and the Bergen County community of Edgewater have poured tens of millions of dollars in property taxes — and payments in lieu of taxes — into municipal coffers, notwithstanding the costs and complications that also accompany growth. (Neither of the golf courses will receive tax abatements, although the Residences at Liberty National will.)

"We're like the last frontier of the Gold Coast," said Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Bayonne Economic Development Corporation.

Bayonne's mayor, Joseph V. Doria Jr., said the course would probably bring in more than $1 million a year in property taxes. He also welcomed a public walkway built by the developers on the perimeter of the course, an amenity required by state law, and one that is part of Liberty National. "It creates an opportunity for our people to go out on New York Harbor, which they never had before," Mr. Doria said.

He added that the golf course, which in the tradition of links courses has taken the name of its host community, had already focused a more flattering, upscale light on Bayonne.

Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy of Jersey City called Liberty National "extraordinary."

Much of the land used for the courses had been publicly owned, including the Bayonne landfill, sold by the city to the developers for $1 million, and the Army Reserve tract that Liberty National's developers bought for $8.5 million. Some open-space advocates have questioned whether the transfer of that land was sound public policy, considering how few members of the public will be able to use it.

"Any time you turn public property into a golf course, you've automatically eliminated its use by a huge percentage of the population," said Sharon Finlayson, chairwoman of the New Jersey Environmental Federation.

Mr. Hughes, the dean of the Bloustein School at Rutgers, said turning over public land even for exclusive uses is sometimes justified, particularly with the high cost of cleaning up contaminated property. "To the degree that those courses enhance the desirability of those communities," he said, "then it's probably a plus for public policy."

Ms. Finlayson said that kind of reasoning reflected an "easy way out" for unimaginative policy makers, too often resulting in the public's loss of open space. "How many golf courses do we need?" she said.

Mr. Mottola, the Metropolitan Golf Association director, said there were 250 private courses within a 100-mile radius of Manhattan, and 200 public courses, giving the area the highest concentration of golf courses anywhere, and some of the best. In fact, five of Golf Digest's top 100 courses in the nation are in New Jersey, including the top-rated course in America, Pine Valley Golf Club in Camden County.

Buddy Stuart, a six-time club champion at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., was invited by Mr. Davies, Liberty's golf development director, to walk the course last summer. "I was very favorably impressed with what I saw," said Mr. Stuart, who nonetheless will not become a member. "But I said, 'Adrian, I don't want to sound negative, but this course is constructed on a toxic waste dump.' "

Liberty National's developers say the PCB's, chromium and other contaminants left by the site's previous users are buried beneath as much as 50 feet of fill, and in some areas a half-inch layer of plastic. State and federal agencies approved cleanups at both courses.

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Joe Seebode, the State Department of Environmental Protection's assistant commissioner for remediation and waste management, called the courses "very successful projects."

"They've turned brownfields into greenfields," he said, adding that neither project had sought state funds under a brownfield reimbursement program.

At the Lincoln Park Driving Range in Jersey City, Dave Moriarity was using his trusty 7-wood to hit shots just shy of a 200-yard marker. Mr. Moriarty is representative of an unheralded class of blue-collar golfers; he is a tractor-trailer driver from Bayonne, whose 8 handicap would be the envy of many millionaires. He is a "member" at the ultra-inclusive East Orange Golf Course in Short Hills, where for $1,000 a year he can reserve a coveted tee time on typically crowded weekend mornings.

"Maybe I shouldn't have told you about it," he said.

Regarding the two new courses, he said, "As far as the golfers in the area, it's no benefit to us."

And for Golfers on a Budget ...

But Hudson County residents may have their own place to play soon, under a plan from County Executive Tom DeGise for a nine-hole course on county-owned land near the driving range. Mr. DeGise said greens fees would repay bonds issued to build the course, which could be completed in 2008.

"I've made it one of the priorities of mine that it would be an affordable, a municipal or county golf course," he said, adding that there are also plans for an 18-hole course straddling Hudson and Bergen Counties in the Meadowlands, to open in 2011. "It ain't a knock on those golf courses," he said of the two private courses. "If they bring a tournament there, and Tiger Woods is hitting a drive toward Ellis Island, I'd like to be there watching that. But that is not exactly what Hudson County needs as far as greening. It's going to exclude 98.9 percent of the golfers in the county."

Mr. DeGise had supported a failed plan in the 1990's to build a public course at Liberty State Park.

Andrew Willner, executive director of the New York-New Jersey Baykeeper, said he had mixed feelings about the courses. As upland disposal sites, they provided an alternative to ocean dumping. On the other hand, they use pesticides that could drain into the harbor — a concern the developers say has been addressed.

"It gives a wonderful opportunity to an elite crowd to get a remarkable view of the New York Harbor while pushing a small white ball around," Mr. Willner said. "In that case, the more people who know how extraordinary the New York Harbor and estuary are, the better off they are."

[injcsince81]

Originally Posted by STT757

"It gives a wonderful opportunity to an elite crowd to get a remarkable view of the New York Harbor while pushing a small white ball around," Mr. Willner said. "In that case, the more people who know how extraordinary the New York Harbor and estuary are, the better off they are."

That just about sums it up.

It's great that a rich guy blows $150 million to build a golf course on a polluted land.

To me, the sight of a school of manta rays in the NY Harbor (I actually saw them and took pics of them) is just as priceless (it's all relative, I guess).

[macmini]

I don't see what the big deal is if the rich guy didn't clean it up it would still be a toxic dump that know one could use. The open spaces we have now "LSP" we don't maintain.

He is a pic of the Bayonne golf course from the article "The Greening of the Gold Coast. It's beautiful it looks more dramatic the JC Gulf Course.

[Zoe]

STT757, please add the source and author of this article to avoid any legal troubles

[STT757]

From Today's Star Ledger Business Section, http://www.NJ.com

Fore! ... hundred thousand dollars
Builders gamble on expensive, exclusive Jersey City club
Sunday, April 02, 2006

Star-Ledger Staff
So what do you with a contaminated tank farm in Jersey City?

Bury a dead mobster, perhaps.

Or build the world's most exclusive golf course.

Beginning July Fourth, that course will be found at Liberty National. Here, on a reclaimed ex panse of toxic ground, the ripples from New York Harbor already lap against the wetlands 30 feet below the 14th hole -- a 149-yard par three in the spirit of Pebble Beach on California's Monterey Peninsula. A few hundred yards into the bay, Lady Liberty takes in the action from an elevated, island gallery.

Beyond the statue, the glass- and-stone skyline of Lower Manhattan looms. There, if the owners of this club have it right, people will be willing to fork over a $400,000 initiation fee to play on one of the most expensive golf courses ever built. Rudy Giuliani has already signed on as a charter member. So has New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

Please, no applications, though.

Membership is by invite only, and for only 50 people this year. Also, don't expect to get on this course via the company tab. There will be no corporate memberships, either.

"You just can't have a guy who paid that kind of initiation fee waiting for one of his employees to tee off," said Dan Fireman, son of Ree bok International founder Paul Fireman, and the chief executive of Liberty National builder Willow bend Development.

The Firemans have bet $130 million they can re-create the atmosphere at the famed Augusta National Golf Club -- home of this week's Masters Tournament -- with one big perk: New York's cap tains of finance and industry will now have 15-minute boat ride to this playpen, rather than a two- hour plane ride to Georgia.

"This is a high-stakes gamble in getting existing exclusive private club members to add another club to their bag, or to find young money that's looking for panache," said Jim Koppenhaver, president of Pellucid, a leading consultant to the golf industry.

"It will either succeed famously or fail tragically, and much of it will rest on whether they can create 'must have' emotion."


PLENTY OF GREEN

So far, the Firemans have spent plenty of money to find out. And they aren't the only ones.

Donald Trump opened a course in Bedminster two years ago with a $250,000 entry fee. Sebonack Golf Club on Long Island's East End will come on line this summer with an entry fee of more than $600,000. Memorial Day brings the opening of the Bayonne Golf Club, 1.5 miles south of Liberty National, with its $150,000 initiation charge for a striking course modeled on Royal Troon in Scotland.

The boom comes as a growing community of freshly minted wealth has become frustrated with the years-long wait lists to get into the old-line established clubs, developers and industry experts said. At the same time, the only way to make money on a golf course in a metropolitan area, these days, is to charge sky-high fees.

"It's just very, very expensive to build courses like these," said Eric Bergstol, chief executive of Empire Golf, which spent $100 million on the rolling, links-style Bayonne course.

"You could never make any money on something like this with a daily fee. So you build a course that attracts a quality of people who are impressed with what you've done, and they encourage their friends to join. It's the way clubs have developed for 100 years."


BEHIND THE SCENES

Still, the sudden confluence of new clubs for the wealthiest of the wealthy is enough to make any weekend hacker froth with envy.

"It's an abundance of courses that are all going to be spectacular, with settings on the water," said Jay Mottola, executive director of the Metropolitan Golf Association, which represents the region's 250 clubs and golf courses. "But even in an expensive area, Sebonack and Liberty National are twice as high as almost any other place."

So what do you get at Liberty National for writing a $400,000 check?

For starters, 160 acres of tight, parkland-style golf more commonly found in the English countryside than the formerly contaminated swamps of Jersey. The course meanders around six finger-like ponds and through hills as high as 40 feet that were carved from 3 million cubic yards of fill. The landscape is as strange to see in this setting as a grassy track in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Then there are the views. On Liberty National's par-three second hole, golfers will aim at Lady Liberty's right shoulder. They will shoot directly at the Manhattan skyline on the par-four fourth hole. On holes eight through 13, the Verra zano-Narrows bridge dominates the southeastern horizon. The 18h hole runs along a cove of wetlands and shoreline where gulls peck for food in the mudflats.

And don't expect some oak- paneled, faux-Tudor clubhouse. Instead the Firemans modeled the building on the Sydney opera house, complete with a premiere dining room and five-star service.

They have hired Aurelian Ang helusiu, who honed his skills at a Four Seasons Hotel in Switzerland, to manage the operation. He plans for caddies to act as on-course concierges who know the members' favorite drinks and foods. Weekend mornings will feature mimosas on the driving range. On colder mornings, there will be hot cider and a masseuse.

"These are going to be the titans of Wall Street and they have tight schedules, so we want to be as attentive as we can be," said Adrian Davies, a former European tour pro who is the club's director of golf development.


'OVER THE TOP'

Dan Fireman said the once-in-a- lifetime chance to build a course next to the Statue of Liberty called for the ultimate roll of the dice.

"We chose to go over the top because we want this course to be on television, to be thought of as 'America's golf course,'" he said.

But with just 50 members this year, Liberty National figures to be one of the emptiest tracks in the country. Even Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield has nearly 500 members. Public courses send off 50 golfers in the course of three hours.

For the Firemans, who sold Reebok last year for $3.8 billion to Adidas-Solomon and pocketed $800 million on the deal, Liberty National is part of 15-year venture into golf course development that began after they got blackballed at an old-line club near their Cape Cod home -- they believe because they are Jewish.

That experience led them to build Willowbend Country Club in Mashpee in 1991. At the time, even the courses at the country's top clubs were attached to old clubhouses where accommodations were tight and musty. And few members enjoyed being forced to spend several thousand dollars each year in the dining room on thick, overdone streaks and dry po tatoes.

At Willowbend, the Firemans put in a modern clubhouse that evoked old New England with covered porches and stone terraces, but also came with a spa and fit ness center, a chef from Le Cirque, hotel-style rooms and the service of a five-star inn. Now the Firemans own nine resort-style golf clubs valued at $2 billion, including the Westin Rio Mar in Puerto Rico and the Ranch in the Berkshires.

[STT757]

Continued..

THE CONDOS

At Liberty National, they are taking the effort a step further.

Here, the Firemans have built a 7,400-yard course they say will be capable of hosting a PGA tournament, perhaps even a major championship like the PGA Championship or U.S Open that traditionally goes to places like Baltusrol. It has been designed with ample room between the holes to allow for 30,000 people to move around the grounds and the kinds of vistas sports television producers dream about.

Planning that began eight years ago. After three years of environmental reviews, 80,000 truckloads of soil and, in some places, a half- inch plastic seal to cover the contaminated ground, they are nearly ready to open .

But not even the Firemans be lieve they can make money just off the golf. Profits, if there are any, will come from that other Jersey obsession: real estate.

In addition, the plan includes the real money-maker for any golf course with an unheard of $130 million price tag -- three planned luxury towers, 33, 34 and 50 stories high that will cost roughly $800 million, making the overall project one of the biggest in New Jersey right now. Only Xanadu at the Meadowlands is bigger.

"Golf course developments receive financing, even when the golf course operation itself is not ex pected to be profitable," said Frank Limehous, a professor at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business and an expert in the economics of the golf industry.

The residential towers, on the other hand, are expected to be profitable, especially as the market for high-end condominiums on New Jersey's so-called Gold Coast remains hot, with apartments in the adjacent Port Liberte development selling these days for more than $600 per square foot.

"If they market these buildings the right way, they will work," said Erik Kaiser, who has built successful luxury developments in both Jersey City and Hoboken. "If these are apartments for young professionals and their families, this can absolutely be a success."

The real question concerning Davies and Fireman these days is how the course's tight fairways, small greens and wind-swept landscape will measure up against the world's top duffers. That ultimately, is what will make the difference between Liberty National being yet another expensive club or one of the country's top courses capable of hosting a national championship.

The answer won't come for several years.

"You never know how good a facility is until you play it," said Mot tola, who has walked the course. "It has to be put to the test of golfers."



Matthew Futterman covers the sports business. He can be reached at (973) 392-1732, or mfutterman@star ledger.com.

LIBERTY NATIONAL

BY THE NUMBERS $129 million: Total cost

3 million: Cubic yards of soil poured to cover contamination and raise elevation

$400,000: Cost to join

80,000: Truckloads required to transport soil

7,400: Length in yards

1,000: Number of fully grown trees planted

250: Projected full membership

50: Memberships to be sold this year

0: Minimum annual dining expenditure

EXCLUSIVE VS. EXPENSIVE Money may be able to buy access in Trenton and Washington, D.C., but it will only get you so far when it comes to golf.

While anyone can drop $500 for a round and a caddie at Pebble Beach, getting access to some of the region's top courses is a little tougher. Don't feel bad, though. Not even former first duffer Bill Clinton could make the waiting lists budge at some of Westchester County's most hallowed courses. Here's a guide to the places where money talks -- and how you can beat the system.

THE TRULY EXCLUSIVE

Pine Valley Golf Club, Pine Valley: The country's top-rated course has a secret membership and little is known about its policies.

Augusta National, Augusta, Ga.: No one quite knows what it takes to get in. There is no formal application process. One day, prospective members are simply invited to join. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates inquired for years about joining before gaining an invitation. The initiation fee is more than $300,000. One prospective member supposedly asked if he could pay it in two installments. He never got an answer, and never got in.

Baltusrol, Springfield: With two courses, the club has a large membership, but given its history, it's not that expensive at $75,000 initiation. But the waiting list long and moves slowly.

Pocantico Hills Golf Course, Tarrytown, N.Y.: The course was built for and is owned by the Rockefeller family. Other than marriage, there is no way to join.

Quaker Ridge, Scarsdale, N.Y.: Famously told Clinton he couldn't make the cut.

THE TRULY EXPENSIVE

Liberty National, Jersey City: It will be New Jersey's most expensive club.

Due Process, Colts Neck: Robert Brennan, the convicted penny stock manipulator, built this course in 1995. It's owned now by Arizona Iced Tea founder John Ferolito Jr. The initiation fee is $300,000.

Trump National, Bedminster: The Donald charges $250,000, but some Baltusrol members say this course is harder than theirs.

Hamilton Farms, Gladstone: It will cost you $150,000 to join but the former Lucent course supposedly has the prettiest flowers in the state and the country's only rated par three course.

HOW TO GET ON

Befriend your club pro: Club pros know other club pros and often can get privileges to play other courses. The most well- regarded club pro can even take you get onto Augusta National, but you'll probably have to pay his way down and back.

Attend an outing: Even Baltusrol hosts corporate and charity outings on Mondays, when the course is closed to members. If you don't get invited on someone else's dime, you may have to spend $2,000 to buy a foursome.

Buddy up to a member: Consistently ask the boss how he hit the ball over the weekend, and show your appreciation of the game. Eventually he (or she) may want to treat you to a special afternoon.

[TimmyG]

Big first day for golf with views of Miss Liberty



Thursday, June 15, 2006 By JARRETT RENSHAW

JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
With the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline serving as a backdrop, officials from the Liberty National Golf Club - dubbed the most expensive golf course ever built - officially opened its doors yesterday to its small and select group of members.
"It will become one of the most spectacular golf courses on the planet," said Bob Cupp, who along with former U.S Open champion Tom Kite designed the 7,400-yard golf course on the western shore of New York Bay.
The highly exclusive par-70 golf course, which several former pros describe as one of the toughest they've ever played, features views of the Big Apple and Lady Liberty on 15 of 18 holes. The signature hole is number 18, a par four, 450-yard stretch of land that ends less than 1,000 yards from the Statue of Liberty.
"This rare convergence of the finest in golf, luxury and location, location, location is what puts Liberty National in a class of its own," said Dan Fireman, president and CEO of Willowbend Development, who along with Applied Companies helped finance the $129 million course.
The deposit fee required to join the club is $400,000, but course officials declined to say how much the annual membership fee would be. The club is only accepting 50 memberships this year, and is already near that number, said Aurelian Anghelusiu, the club's managing director.
The prestige and uniqueness of the course has some city officials thinking a major PGA championship is not far away.
"This will be a destination golf course for ESPN . and all the other major networks," said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy. "Soon, the PGA Tour and the U.S Open will be coming here and the world can see how great a city Jersey City is."
The members, along with several local officials, were allowed to play the course for the first time yesterday.
One of the club's first members is Nick Patti Jr., an independent contractor from Staten Island. He said he heard about Liberty National while being involved in projects in Hudson County.
"I live in Staten Island, and the location is great. I also may want to move to Jersey City, so the whole thing makes sense," Patti said.
Though the hefty price tag made Patti think twice, he considered the prestige and benefits were worth the cost.