Brackenridge Heights Golf Course for sale if the price is right

Brackenridge Heights Golf Course in Harrison has shut down its daily restaurant and is up for sale — for the “right” price.

The right price at the moment: a cool $3 million.

“A: The restaurant's closed down,” co-owner Jim Tomson said. “B: the golf course is for sale.

“It's always been up for sale at the right price.”

The nine-hole golf course and pro shop remain open, and the venue still is available for weddings, banquets, wakes and showers. Weddings already are booked for 2018, according to co-owner Rubus Tomson.

Owners said they closed the restaurant because they were losing money on it.

“People weren't coming there and eating,” Jim Tomson said.

The venue isn't listed anywhere and doesn't have an official real estate agent, Jim Tomson said. He said there is an “individual” looking for potential buyers.

“People have asked us if we would be interested in selling,” Jim Tomson said. “(We say,) ‘Yeah, we're interested.'

“Various people have said, ‘Do you mind if I try to sell this for you?' ‘Yes, you can try to sell it, you can go get offers, but we're not signing any agreements to anybody.' ”

Rubus Tomson also said the family is not actively looking to sell the property, but “if somebody offers us the right amount of money, we'll take it.”

“If we're actively selling that doesn't make sense,” Rubus Tomson said. “I just booked a wedding for October of 2018.”

Harrison Commissioner Chuck Dizard said he has known about the course being for sale for a while. He's disappointed the restaurant didn't work out.“It was a beautiful facility,” he said. “We went there any number of times. The township can use a nice restaurant, and I'm sorry it didn't survive.”

He hopes that, if someone does buy the property, they will do something constructive with it.

“The zoning is restrictive in terms of what can be done other than what is being done right now,” Dizard said. He said the property is zoned as a conservation district.

“I would like to see that property be vibrant and make a nice contribution to the township,” Dizard said.

Permitted uses in conservation districts include parks, cemeteries, country clubs and agriculture, said Lindsay Fraser, supervisor of the township's zoning and ordinance office. Higher impact uses generally require a conditional use hearing before the planning commission, which then would make a recommendation to the board of commissioners, she said.

For decades, until recently, Brackenridge Heights was a private country club. The change to a public golf course follows a trend that has occurred all over Western Pennsylvania and the nation.

Allegheny County real estate records show that Tomson Scrap Metal bought the course in November 2011 for $970,000.

Prior to that, it was owned by First Commonwealth Bank, which bought it for $1,825 from Brackenridge Heights Country Club in September 2011, the records show.

Rubus Tomson said the family got the course in an Allegheny County sheriff's sale.

Jim Tomson said his family bought the course with aspirations to save it.

“A lot of people got married there. There were a lot of good memories there,” Jim Tomson said. “It's a nice, local golf course. We thought we could hold that tradition ... but we can't be the savior of the world, either.

“We don't have endless resources.”

Madasyn Czebiniak is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-226-4702, mczebiniak@tribweb.com or via Twitter @maddyczebstrib.