Use restrictions on the property St. Johns County has sought to acquire around the World Golf Hall of Fame continue to stall its sale.
According to a county report, for a period of 50 years from July 31, 1996, “lands constituting the Hall of Fame/Golf Course Parcels shall be utilized exclusively for the construction, development and operation of the Hall of Fame, an 18-hole golf course and clubhouse improvements and a PGA Tour Productions facility, sports medicine facility, IMAX or IWERKS.”
Developer SJIT Land (the successor of the original World Golf Village developer SJH Partnership Ltd.) maintains the restrictions.
The World Golf Foundation closed the St. Augustine Hall of Fame in 2023 and relocated it to Pinehurst, North Carolina. St. Johns County owns the building that housed the closed World Golf Hall of Fame museum and IMAX Theater.
The foundation owns 36.7 acres around the Hall of Fame structure including the former PGA Tour Productions building, surrounding walkways, the lake at the heart of the complex and parking lots.
A deal for the county to buy the Foundation property for $5.5 million expired late in 2024.
Commissioner Christian Whitehurst called the purchase a “rat’s nest.”
“What we’ve discovered is there are a lot of moving parts,” he said. “This is more complex than other deals. We were really trying to do the will of the people by expressing in acquiring the property because the fear, which the fear all over the county, is that we leave it to the free market, which god bless the free market, but you know what’s going to go in there is multifamily.
“Any commercial that goes into this property fails. The free market has done trial and error and trial and error. But for Caddy Shack. I’m telling you, when there is a nuclear holocaust, it will be the cockroaches and Caddy Shack. God bless those guys. The Murray brothers have got it figured out.”
Commissioner Sarah Arnold instructed staff to continue negotiations regarding the use restrictions with SJIT Land.
IMAX Theater
In the interim, there may be hope for the IMAX Theater to reopen. It closed unexpectedly Dec. 12, with Arnold saying she was “shocked.”
County Director of Facilities Management Daniel Whitcraft told the Commission the annual recurring cost to operate the IMAX theater is about $400,000.
Short-term needs include pressure washing and landscaping.
“And then, of course, probably the biggest item that will need to be addressed is either a significant roof repair or an overall replacement of the roof, which again, is going to be costly.”
The IMAX Theater staying open remains of public interest, according to a May county survey.
Maxfield said SJC Cultural Events Inc., has the right of first refusal to oversee operations of the theater. It oversees the operation and management of the St. Augustine Amphitheatre and Ponte Vedra Concert Hall.
A county request for proposals to run the theater issued Nov. 6 yielded one rejected response.
After an invitation to provide insight into the future of the theater, Friends of Ponte Vedra Concert Hall President Jerry Wilson told the Commissioners the locally owned not-for-profit initially did not have ideas. Twelve days later, it came back with three.
“Things can change as we move forward,” he said.
IMAX options
One option is to keep the theater closed and allow the county to continue to explore its options.
“This is the easiest and least expensive of the options,” he said. “The benefit of that would be the flexibility, but this could also be viewed by the public as, they took time to provide feedback and it wasn’t listened to, and here we are.”
Reopening a single-use IMAX, a second option, is not ideal, Wilson said.
“Let’s remember the IMAX is a single-use venue and it has very strict franchise requirements, such as any film shown must use the IMAX format if it’s available,” he said. “Those films are surtaxed at 5% of royalties that are paid back to IMAX.”
Wilson said the theater’s screen was recently inspected by IMAX and that it “immediately needs to be replaced.”
“The community definitely seems to support this option, but unfortunately it’s the most expensive of the three,” he said.
Wilson said the third option would repurpose the theater as a multiuse venue with daily screenings, plus lectures and live performances.
The IMAX was showing films three days a week when it operated.
That option would require a new, but standard, projector and screen. The venue also would serve alcohol.
The Commission will revisit the land acquisition and IMAX operations at an upcoming, but not specified meeting.