Fort Worth Business Press, June 2, 2014 Vol. 26, No. 21 | Page 19

19
cover story

Woodhaven Country Club’s new owners plan to lengthen the scenic golf course and make it more challenging by
pulling the tee boxes back.

Scoma.
“Somebody knew somebody who
said let’s go look at this,” Fairchild
said, explaining how the group became
aware the club was for sale.
“This is an urban community with a
suburban feel that has a golf course right
smack in the middle of it,” Fairchild
said, describing part of the appeal.
He said the ownership structure will
likely become more formal later. Bailey
is the only one of the partners who lives
in Fort Worth, Fairchild said.
Scoma has not responded to requests
for interviews from the Fort Worth
Business Press.
Community leaders are taking
measure of the new owners.
Fairchild’s
resume
includes
numerous senior executive roles in
alternative energy, financial services,
manufacturing, technology, business
services, real estate, and aviation and
aerospace.
As Air New Zealand adviser and
“shadow CEO” between 1999 and
2002, he developed a new strategy for
the airline after its Ansett Airlines unit
shut down.
Scarth said the new owners’ courting
of community groups is encouraging.
Major groups left the club because the
previous owner had “tried to attack each
one of these things as a money-making
opportunity,” Scarth said.
“We want it to be a real focal point
for the whole neighborhood,” said Bill
Jackson, president of the Woodhaven
association. “I think it will benefit the
neighborhood and the club.”
Various big-picture trends stand to
benefit Woodhaven, Scarth said.
On crime, primarily in apartments,
“we have made great strides in the last
four to five years,” he said.
Woodhaven has 23 apartment
complexes and more than 4,500
apartments,
which
were
largely
developed in the 1970s and 1980s.

With the end of the recession,
investors are putting money into
multifamily complexes again, and
rehabs are generally cheaper than new
construction, Scarth said.
As a result, owners of at least five major
properties in Woodhaven launched
improvement projects coming out of
the recession, he said.
Finally, at least a half dozen
Woodhaven apartment complexes have
loans that are tied up in bundles of loans
sold to investors, making it impossible
for owners to get new financing or to
invest, Scarth said.
“Banks end up with them,” Scarth
said.
Those 10-year loans are coming due
in the next two to three years, which
will unlock those opportunities for new
owners, he said.
The city also is considering dissolving
its Woodhaven Tax Increment Financing
district and establishing a new one,
Scarth said.
Because of depressed property values,
the existing TIF generates no money. A
new TIF would start at a lower base, he
said. Incremental property tax growth
could be used to offer development
incentives for purposes such as
demolition and rerouting of streets and
water infrastructure.
Scarth said he sees an opportunity
for senior living on the country club
property in the area now occupied by its
tennis courts.
“It’s not really as popular as it used
to be,” said Scarth, who has pitched the
idea to Fairchild. “I think you could
take the tennis courts and do a [small]
senior living complex.”
Fairchild said his group is listening
but is some distance from committing
to a project like that.
“Until we get the data and verify its
accuracy, until we get a true read on the
willingness of the community to step
up, we can’t commit,” he said. n