Cape Breton Post
October 4, 2005
Nancy King
"Inverness Golf Course
Nearing Reality"
Inverness —
The long awaited dream of
establishing a world-class
Scottish links style golf
course on the former mine
site here is finally becoming
a reality.
The Cape Breton Growth Fund
announced Monday a $2.5
million equity investment
in the project, which will
be constructed by a new
company, Cabot Links, led
by Toronto-based developer
Ben Cowan-Dewar.
That company will retain
a world-renowned architect
to design and construct
the 18-hole course.
“Ten years, three
months and 24 days,”
Tom Ryan of the Inverness
Development Authority, said
of how long the community
group worked on the project.
“We had nothing else
here, just cheerleaders,
but we kept on pushing it
and people finally listened.”
The total cost of the project
is expected to be $5-6 million.
It’s believed it would
be the only public course
of its kind in North America.
“No course will have
this feel — this is
like landing in the middle
of St. Andrew’s in
Scotland, on the water,
that open feeling and the
wind and the sun, I dream
about it all the time,”
Ryan said.
Remediation of the 195-acre
site — necessary before
the development could go
ahead — was completed
by the province in 2003.
The site had been untouched
since mining ended there
more than 40 years earlier.
Hundreds of area residents
attended the announcement
in Inverness Monday, packing
the community’s arts
centre.
An information meeting will
take place Thursday to discuss
the course, which has long
been touted as an important
economic development project
for central Inverness County.
“The people in the
community are very upbeat,
very excited about what
can happen here,”
Ryan said.
By its second full year
of operation, the course
is expected to create 20
jobs.
While there were several
times over the years when
it appeared an announcement
was just around the corner,
plans were always scuttled.
The current partner has
the right combination of
knowledge, funding and commitment
to the project, Ryan said.
“Circumstances got
in the way, I guess, things
just weren’t right,”
he noted. “But we’re
very pleased with who we’re
working with now, the people
who have committed to this
project are top of the line,
very knowledgeable in golf
and are going to add a lot
to the mix.”
Ryan also noted support
from municipal, provincial
and federal levels of government
for the project.
“But it couldn’t
be run as a government project,
it had to be steered by
private enterprise,”
he said.
The development association,
which is warden of the land,
will turn it over to Cabot
Links, along with a number
of parcels of private land.
After the design is finalized,
work is expected to begin
on the site next spring.
No major clearing is required
on the site.
“You can stand on
a hill in the middle of
the course, which we’ve
done on hundreds of occasions,
and you can visualize the
golf course,” Ryan
said. “It has that
kind of potential.”
After about a year of construction,
the course will be seeded.
Ryan believes golf could
possibly be played on the
course in late summer-fall,
2007.
There are rumours that a
hotel development could
follow the golf course,
Ryan said, adding he believes
that when it is added to
the other attractions in
the area, the area will
turn into more of a tourist
hub and a place to which
people will want to retire.
