The nation’s first African American-owned, 18-hole golf course in Gloucester Township, Camden County, will be developed into 743 residential homes over 154 acres, according to an application with the Township zoning board.
Freeway Golf Course was purchased by four Black businessmen in 1967 and saw the last round of golf played in November 2015. The course, host of the first Sammy Davis Jr. Open, was offered for sale in early 2016.
“An investment of $250,000 made them the first African Americans in the country to own an 18-hole course. In the coming years, it became a model for other black-owned golf courses across the nation and a site for some of the sport’s most important competitions,” according to an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2016.
Zoning board members are scheduled on Wednesday, June 24th, to hear testimony on the proposal by Hamilton-based US Home LLC (doing business as Lennar) to build single-family homes, townhomes, affordable multi-family housing, and age-restricted homes on the 1858 Sicklerville Road property in the Sicklerville section of the town.
The development represents what would be a building boom in Gloucester Township, which had 26,312 housing units in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Its 743 total units would be more than double the number of residential units authorized by building permits in the 10 years between 2010 and 2019, according to documents filed with the application.
The applicant seeks a use variance to allow townhouses and multi-family apartment buildings as principal uses. The project also requests that a density of 4.82 dwelling units per acre be allowed where one unit per acre is permitted.
“Freeway Pointe” residential development would have an estimated total value of $292 million, according to the application.
The breakdown of housing units:
• 177 single-family detached homes, average sale price of $497,000.
• 63 age-restricted single-family detached homes, average sale price of $469,000.
• 222 traditional townhouse units, average sale price of $430,000.
• 168 stacked townhouse units, average sale price of $365,000.
• 113 affordable multi-family rental units, average monthly rental of $1,240.
The lot is owned by Black Horse Properties LLC of Blackwood, New Jersey, according to the application. Timber Creek Regional High School neighbors the property.
Plans show a “recreation complex” that includes a clubhouse, exercise equipment area, swimming pool, pickleball and basketball courts, and three U-10 soccer fields. The complex also has a dog park.
Projections in the plans estimate the development will have 2,086 residents, with 315 of them school-age children.
A traffic study estimates that 381 trips would be added to the area during the morning peak hour and 453 trips in the evening peak hour.
When the property first went on the market, members of the governing board said they hoped it could remain a golf course, according to an article in The Inquirer.
Freeway Golf once “was a safe haven for black golfers who often weren’t accepted into other clubs in the area,” the article noted.
“But progress in racial equity took its toll on the course: When other golf clubs became more accepting and more courses popped up in the area, Freeway lost a large chunk of its business,” according to the article.
