The former Stone Tree golf course property has been listed for sale at $2.15 million.
The property — which includes 75 apartment units, a fitness centre and saltwater pool, an events centre and other buildings on about 220 acres of land — was listed last week with Colliers International of Kitchener.
Michael Balnar, president of Balnar Management Ltd., which owns Stone Tree, said there has already been interest in the property, with all prospective buyers being directed to Colliers.
“With the land, with the apartments and with the facilities, I think the long-term prospects for the properties are good,” Balnar said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “We are feeling pretty positive about it.”
Balnar announced in early December that it was closing the Stone Tree golf course just south of the city and listing the property, including the apartment complex, fitness and events centre. Balnar had owned the property and its facilities since 1992 and opened the golf course in 1998, but decided to close and get out of the golf business and focus on its core business of multi-residential and commercial property management in the Guelph and Kitchener areas. Balnar also announced that it would be selling its other course, the Legacy Ridge Golf Club, to a local group. As a condition of that sale, the Stone Tree property will not be sold to a golf business or operator.
According to the listing on the Colliers International website, the property is “a unique opportunity to own an operating  event centre, state-of-the-art fitness facility with saltwater pool and a 75-unit apartment complex. The sale of these facilities include over 220 acres of land.”
The facilities are actually two separate properties, but are being marketed for sale together. The Georgian Apartments, which includes 52 bachelor units and 23 one-bedroom units, sits on an 8.2 acre property that neighbours Stone Tree’s facilities and the more than 200 acres of Escarpment land. There is parking for about 200 at the properties.
“With the apartments and with the adjacent facilities, it does provide good potential for somebody for some type of use,” said Balnar.
It will be left up to prospective purchasers to determine if they would like to operate the facilities as they are or convert them to something else, Balnar said.
“All we do know is it will not be a golf course,” said Balnar. “We are leaving it to the potential suitors to establish what their goals are and work with Colliers on that.”
In the meantime, the fitness facilities and pool are continuing to operate at Stone Tree while the property is on the market.
Food operations closed on Jan. 1, but since that time Stone Tree’s former chef, Trevor Schwandt, and his partner, Miranda Miller, signed a lease agreement to operate their catering business out of the facility, pending the property’s sale.
The Georgian Apartments are also continuing to operate.
“Everything is status quo and we are quite pleased with how the community has responded to that, which is steady business,” Balnar said.