A plan for a state grant application to buy Wilkshire Golf Course and turn it into a park and nature preserve has fallen through due to lack of support from Lawrence Township trustees.
Three of the county commissioners decided Thursday not to back the efforts of the property’s owners and a Cleveland-area organization to get a Clean Ohio grant to buy the 182-acre course near Bolivar.
The 16-member advisory committee of the Tuscarawas County Park Department supported the Clean Ohio application, but the plan will go no further after the trustee’s decision.
The area already has more than 600 acres of open space, including multiple parks and trails. The community would lose about $25,000 a year in tax revenues should the golf course became a nature preserve.
The golf course is owned by the daughters of the two men who initially built the course. They proposed selling the course to the West Creek Conservancy of Parma, which would have funded the purchase with taxpayer money from a Clean Ohio grant.
The course remains available for sale, but no other market offers have been made to date.
