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With its lender agitating for improvements, the bankrupt and exclusive Spanish Trail Country Club golf course in Las Vegas has announced an initiative to retain and attract members.
Spanish Trail, which has a well-regarded Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed 27-hole course and associated amenities, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on Aug. 24 to block takeover and foreclosure attempts by its mortgage holder.
The course has said it expects to remain cash-flow positive through the bankruptcy process and Bankruptcy Judge Bruce Markell has approved routine requests that the club continue to pay wages and normal operating expenses.
In a Monday court filing questioning plans by the club to use its cash collateral, lender Hermitage Management LLC said it "remains very concerned about the debtor’s significant decrease in membership and why the debtor has not hired a third-party professional golf management company to operate the property."
Hermitage Management says it’s owed $16.1 million under a 2007 loan – a loan the club defaulted on after steep membership declines tied to the recession.
Spanish Trail says it has about 400 members, down from about 700 in 2007.
"This was definitively not an action Spanish Trail wanted to take. We negotiated ingenuously and intensely with our lender for months. We were unable to reach a fair and satisfactory resolution and to protect our members and Spanish Trail Country Club we had no choice but to take this action that so many other companies in Las Vegas, as well as around the nation have had to pursue,” Mark Hedge, president of the board of Spanish Trail, said in a statement Thursday.
The club also announced Thursday it had initiated a Special Membership Committee to increase membership and overall revenue.
"We know that the economy has taken a toll on virtually all of our members and we are now preparing to take significant action to ease that burden and add new members,” Hedge said in a statement.
He said Spanish Trail "already has several levels of membership and among the issues we are addressing is how to add new segments to these levels that would be more accommodating to new members in this economy."
"Similarly, we are looking at ways in which we can reconfigure monthly fees for current members without reducing the excellence in our golf course, services and amenities for which Spanish Trail Country Club is known. We expect to announce our new strategy shortly,” Hedge said.