End Comes for Woodcrest Country Club

Woodcrest Country Club has shut down and is headed for the auction block.

The 84-year-old golf course won’t reopen this spring and will be sold to the highest bidder, according to a recent announcement from Bonnie Fatell, the Chapter 11 trustee to the club.

The announcement of the auction and closure came just two weeks after Fatell posted an initial announcement, indicating she and others at the law firm of Blank Rome LLP would be assessing the situation at the club.

From her more recent announcement, that situation is dire—Fatell indicated unpaid Chapter 11 vendor expenses were “significant,” and referenced the battle between the club and Sun Bank, its sole creditor.

“Unfortunately, the club has no funds to operate, and I have concluded that the only option is to market the club and its assets for sale to the public,” she wrote to members in a message posted on the club’s website.

Woodcrest filed for bankruptcy on May 9 of last year to stave off Sun Bank’s move to put the club up for a sheriff’s sale. Sun, which is listed as being owed $10.67 million, which the club disputes, in Woodcrest’s bankruptcy filing, backed an $8 million clubhouse project at the heart of the club’s financial troubles.

Club members who voted for the clubhouse expansion weren’t required to pay for it, according to a 2010 Philadelphia Inquirer report, and those members left in droves following the approval.

While Sun is the owed the most, Woodcrest has other big debts, including more than $600,000 in unpaid legal bills, tens of thousands in food, clothing and equipment and a $25,000 unpaid utility bill.

Woodcrest also owes the state more than $135,000 in sales and use taxes.

Despite the debts to Sun and others, the club's value was only assessed at about $3.19 million as of last year, according to property tax records, and had its assessment lowered from $3.46 million in 2010.

While a date for the auction has yet to be announced, Fatell told members her firm would be filing a motion with the bankruptcy court to approve bidding and set the auction in motion.

SSG Capital Advisors, a West Conshohocken, PA, firm, will run marketing and the auction itself, Fatell wrote. Club members have been asked to pick up personal property stored at Woodcrest on consecutive Saturdays—March 9, between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., and March 17, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Fatell has already filed a separate motion to release money from two accounts—around $120,000 from the club’s plan fund and roughly $92,000 in prepaid 2013 dues.

Originally a public course when it first opened, Woodcrest turned private in 1948 and became a haven for Jewish golfers in the area who were snubbed by other clubs.