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Wednesday, December 29, 2021
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Lakes Golf Course sports long-missing look BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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hwatukee Lakes residents are closing out the year with a sight they haven’t laid eyes on in eight years – grass on half of the 18-hole golf course. But owner Wilson Gee said his company, ALCR, couldn’t make good on its promise to have nine holes open for play by the end of November because city and state agencies have been dragging their heels on his permits for the mobile clubhouse bathroom. “We need a permit from the city and from the state,” Gee said. “Basically everything is built. I have no idea why the delay. We’ve been waiting just for the roof of the bathroom, which is not more than 20 square feet and we’re waiting three months.” Gee said he has no idea what’s causing the delay, though he suspects “somebody is doing something on purpose.” Still, he said, that delay hasn’t stopped crews from making sure that when he gets the permits, duffers can come out to play. That’s something that hasn’t happened since 2013, when Gee closed the 105-acre course because, he said, it hadn’t turned a profit in the whole time he and his partners owned it under the company named Bixby Village. Bixby bought the course in 2006. “Once we get that (permit), we’ll open the driving range imme- Ahwatukee Lakes Golf Course is sporting something neighbors haven’t seen diately,” Gee said. “The practice putting green looks awfully good. since 2013: grass, which was planted in November and has taken root. The sight We’re still top dressing that a little bit. We’re in the cleanup stage two weeks ago stands in sharp contrast to what the course looked like when
the same drone photographer, Tom Sanfillipo of Inside Out Aerial in Ahwatusee LAKES page 9 kee, shot the photo below two years ago. (Tom Sanfilippo/InsideOut Aerial)
2021 in Ahwatukee: A year of change, controversy BY PAUL MARYNIAK AFN Executive Editor
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hange and same-old, same-old. Controversy and jubilation. Promise and disappointment. Every year has all that and Ahwatukee had more than its share in 2021. Here’s a look back at some of the dominant themes of the year.
Golf courses
The year began with two of Ahwatukee’s four golf courses in a seemingly endless legal battle and deteriorated state. Now only one remains that way with no end in sight to litigation or its current barren state. Ahwatukee Lakes is on the verge of a comeback of sorts, though owner Wilson Gee and the lawyer for two homeowners suing him
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aren’t eye-to-eye on the state of that comeback. Meanwhile, just as one judge finally resolved an 18-month-long legal fight between the Club West Conservancy and the Foothills Club West Association board, a new one hit the community of about 2,600 homeowners as the Conservancy sued Shea Homes and course owner
see REVIEW page 3