Developer Bruce Toll eyes bid for Woodcrest Country Club
Investor and developer Bruce E. Toll has emerged as a possible bidder for the bankrupt Woodcrest Country Club in Cherry Hill.
Investor and developer Bruce E. Toll has emerged as a possible bidder for the bankrupt Woodcrest Country Club in Cherry Hill.
Jeffery Kurtzman, an attorney for Toll's BET Funding L.L.C., said Toll would develop the 155-acre property as a medical campus if his firm bid for the country club and succeeded in buying it.
"A lot of dominoes have to fall into place," Kurtzman said.
A medical campus would comply with the traditionally Jewish country club's institutional zoning, according to Scott Victor of SSG Capital Advisors of West Conshohocken, which the bankruptcy trustee engaged to market and conduct the public sale.
The trustee, Bonnie Glantz Fatell of the Blank Rome law firm, has not yet filed a motion to set a date for the auction.
While the Toll name is best known in the area as that of homebuilders, Kurtzman said BET Funding does not expect Cherry Hill Township would change the zoning to residential.
Kurtzman, of Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg, filed a notice of appearance with U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Monday, signaling Toll's interest.
Until last week, only Crestwood Property Group L.L.C. had emerged as a likely bidder, its name a clear play on the Woodcrest name.
Crestwood's principals are members of the Brown family who control Sun National Bank of Vineland, N.J., the club's only secured creditor. Sidney R. Brown, the bank's vice chairman, was a member of Woodcrest's board.
Kurt F. Gwynne, the lawyer representing Crestwood, has not responded to requests for comment on the firm's possible plans for the property.
Fatell has told Woodcrest members that the club had no money to open this year and that the sale of the property was the only remaining option.
Woodcrest members can pick up their belongings at the club between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday. Additional dates may be set in April, since some members are spending the winter in Florida, Fatell said.
Woodcrest filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May as it was about to undergo a sheriff's sale sought by Sun, which financed a disputed and ill-fated clubhouse expansion.
In a reorganization plan filed in January, Woodcrest reported claims of more than $20 million, including $11.8 million by the bank.
The par-71 course dates to 1929 and later began operating as a daily-fee public course. It became a private club and haven for area Jewish golfers starting in 1948, a time when Jews found it hard to get into other private clubs.
