This Muni just sold for nearly $50 million. Here’s why other courses may come next

Dauphin Highlands, a county golf course in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has a lot to offer: postcard views, affordable rates, and a laid-back, family-friendly atmosphere. Just ask Rick Simonick. He’s been a regular on Dauphin T-shirts for more than 25 years and is happy to hear about the beautiful views of the Susquehanna River as the Dauphin trees shed their leaves. A modest fee he pays for senior membership. Or, the course, which plays about 50,000 rounds a year, has a welcoming atmosphere that fosters golfers of all ages and abilities.

Mr. Simonick, now 68 and retired from an electronic parts company, has no children, but has family ties to Kors. He introduced the game to his nieces and nephews there and will never forget the rounds he played in Dauphin with his wife Debbie and parents in 2020. The outing was always memorable because golf was one of the few activities that brought the family together during these difficult days of social distancing. But the day when Debbie’s tee shot hit the bottom of the cup on the par-3 fourth hole, making her the first ace in history, was one of Simonick’s fondest memories. Of all the memories he has with Dauphin, Simonick says that is the most important.

If Simonick sounds wistful when he talks about the course, it’s because Dauphin Highland’s days appear to be numbered. In August, the Dauphin County General Authority voted: sell a course Sold to Harrisburg I, LLC for $45.6 million. This is a staggering amount, nearly 10 times the recorded price for the 228 acres of land. But Harrisburg I, owned by Dallas-based Provident Realty, is not a traditional golf course buyer. The company wants the ground, rather than green space, for data center sites, and is part of a booming real estate sector competing to meet the vast storage and power needs of generative artificial intelligence. As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said, “Over time, I think we’re going to see many parts of the world covered in data centers.”

Golf courses are increasingly following that path, too. When Dauphin County announced its intention to sell Dauphin Highlands, five other data center builders submitted proposals, highlighting the rapidly growing demand for large, open land near energy and water sources. County officials said the winning bid, which would help fund schools and welfare programs and pay off the golf course’s millions of dollars in debt, was a windfall that few municipalities would easily turn down. This deal is not yet final. Provident must ensure that the site has sufficient power. But barring a major setback, the end date is set for Dec. 31, 2027, at which point public golfers in the Harrisburg area will have one less course to play.

“If that happens, it’s going to be a sad day, and it will happen,” Simonick told me. “The people of central Pennsylvania are pretty down-to-earth and we know how the world works. They’ll be happy to take it on.”

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No matter how strong you are If you feel about the social benefits of golf courses, you can understand the appeal of a salary of nearly $50 million. Dauphin Highlands is not an isolated case. As data center development accelerates (there are currently more than 5,400 in the U.S.), active and defunct golf facilities in at least six states have been identified as possible sites, and courses are increasingly at the forefront of the battle between recreation and the digital infrastructure that supports modern life.

Pennsylvania, in particular, is a hotbed for this type of activity due to the state’s available land, abundant natural gas reserves, and significant investment in energy production. Royal Manchester Golf Links, a day-fee course in Mount Wolf, just a 30-minute drive south of Dauphin Hills, was under consideration for a data center as recently as October. The proposal drew strong opposition from residents, and the Board of Supervisors shelved the course as a potential data center site.

But 30 minutes further southwest, a data center is being built on land currently occupied by Briarwood Golf Club, a family-run daily course in York. That development, led by Colorado-based Viridian Partners, took a step forward in October when the West Manchester Township Board of Supervisors approved the necessary zoning ordinance for the project. “Ideally, the family would like to keep it as a golf course,” board chairman Steve Harlacher told me. “But we know they don’t want that.”

And if a sale is unavoidable, Harlacher said building a data center would probably be a positive outcome, at least in terms of minimizing disruption to the town. “What other buyers have come in with are large warehouses that have a pretty big impact,” he said. “One of them was a manufacturer that had 300 tractor trailers coming in and out of its facility a day, not to mention employees and so on.”

Harlacher isn’t helping determine Briarwood’s future solely from a bureaucrat’s perspective. He is also a lifelong golfer who grew up playing on the course. “There’s a connection,” he said. As a kid, even before he started playing golf, he and his friends would bike to Briarwood and scoop balls from the pond. By the age of 12 he was taking lessons there and was soon playing rounds with his grandfather, brothers and friends.

This course is in Mr. Harlasher’s blood, and that’s why he hopes at least some of the holes will survive, in addition to the fact that the land brings joy to many other area golfers. Harlascher said the town asked the developer if it was possible to preserve the nine holes because in the original plan for the Viridian property, plans for a data facility only took up half of the site. No matter how the agreement is finalized, the town will benefit from annual property tax revenue of about $6 million, of which $4.5 million will go to the school district, Harlascher said.

Of course, there are other considerations, such as noise pollution, if data centers become a reality. Loss of green space. The amount of water required for the facility’s cooling system. And the town’s electricity bill could rise. But one of the board’s other two supervisors, George Margetas, told me about the offer. “This was one of those situations where it was hard not to say yes.”

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Similar discussion about The possibility of converting golf courses into data centers has become clear, and in some cases rampant, in at least five states: Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, and California.

In Hanover County, Virginia, near Richmond, a developer is seeking approval to build a data center on 400 acres that include Hunting Hawk Golf Club, a daily course on the banks of the Chickahominy River. The request comes after the Northern Virginia Planning Commission last year denied a zoning application that would have allowed the then-owner of Leesburg’s defunct West Park Golf Club to build a data center on the property.

The same Texas company looking to buy Dauphin Highlands also scrambled to get approval to build a $1.3 billion data center on land formerly occupied by Brushy Golf Club in Indiana, which will close in 2021. Residents objected and the proposal was withdrawn. About 550 miles to the east in Hubbard, Ohio, residents have voiced concerns about plans to build a data center on the grounds of Deer Creek Golf Club, a daily golf course where fees start at $20 for 18 holes. In Farmington, Minn., just south of Minneapolis, the city council late last year approved a developer’s proposal to build up to 12 data centers on 340 acres, including the site of Fountain Valley Golf Course, which closed in 2022. A group of Farmington residents sued the city hoping to block the development.

On the West Coast, land that is home to the defunct Delta View Golf Course in Pittsburgh, California, north of San Francisco, has been approved for development as a technology park and data center. In 2022, the Pittsburgh City Council agreed to sell more than half of the municipal course’s acreage to a Delaware developer. That means Delta View will become the first former municipal facility with an auditorium designed by Augusta National visionary Alistair McKenzie to be renovated into what Pittsburgh Mayor Jelani Killings said last month would be “a catalyst for secondary businesses such as technology suppliers, research and development, and support industries.” Companies will choose to locate near this brand new infrastructure. ”

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How serious is the threat? It’s hard to say whether the digitalization of golf courses will have an impact on the game. So far, industry leaders aren’t sounding the alarm, but it may just be a matter of perception.

Neither the National Golf Foundation nor the Golf Course Owners Association of America track statistics on such activity, and two data center experts I spoke with said they were unaware of data center developers giving golf courses any special attention. Peter Babidian, president of Dallas-based Trinity Consultants, which advises on data center construction, said golf courses actually seem like poor places to build facilities, at least in some respects.

“Most of the data center projects we work on are in areas with large amounts of open space,” Babidian said. “Golf courses can be large tracts of open space, but the first thing that comes to mind for me is slope. Most of the golf courses I’ve seen have significant slope changes in terms of hills and undulations and undulations. So if you can get X number of acres of open space and just do extensive grading, why reuse a golf course that might have water and hazards and drainage and elevation changes?”

Babidian thought the answer to that question might lie in the proximity of some courses to energy sources. According to a 2024 report from the Brookings Institution, data centers consume 4.4 percent of the electricity generated in the United States, and Goldman Sachs recently reported that global electricity demand from data centers will increase by 50 percent by 2027 and up to 165 percent by 2030.

“The availability of electricity is very important,” Babijan said. “I don’t know what the typical distance is from a golf course to a utility, but it’s certainly an issue that data centers require huge amounts of power and require large amounts of water. A lot of the projects we’ve been involved with are building their own substations, they’re building gas-fired power plants, and there’s even a push towards nuclear in the future.”

Other experts, including Pat Lynch, executive managing director and global head of CBRE Data Center Solutions, also based in Dallas, agreed that the “common denominator” in many data center projects is the need for “high capacity” power. “When you peel back the onion on these (golf course properties), I think there are some people in power around or in the immediate vicinity of the golf course,” Lynch said.

For Pennsylvania courses, you don’t have to look far to find that story. In July, President Trump and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pennsylvania) used the occasion of the first Energy Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh to announce more than $90 billion in investments in energy and AI for Pennsylvania. Part of the plan is aimed at providing energy to data centers and strengthening the power grid. The Trump administration also loaned Constellation Energy $1 billion on behalf of Microsoft to restart a nuclear reactor at the plant formerly known as Three Mile Island, which has been closed since 2019. Three Mile Island is located along the Susquehanna River, about a 30 minute drive south of Dauphin Hills and about 45 minutes north of Briarwood.

When I asked Jay Cullen, CEO of the National Association of Golf Course Owners, about data centers creeping onto golf courses, he said he wasn’t familiar with the specifics of such deals, but said, “It’s an unsurprising phenomenon. These land-use cases in golf are very controversial, because the locals always hate to see green space go away because it’s like, ‘Not in my backyard.’ But at the end of the day, these are small businesses and they execute exit strategies.

“These golf courses may only be worth $3 million, $4 million, $5 million as golf courses, but when you have somebody dangling a check for $20 million or $40 million, there’s economics at work, right?”

Karen believes this capitalist niche market also has a downside. That means there will be no more low-cost courses like Dauphin Hills. He said he has “deep concerns” about the supply line for affordable daily golf in the United States. That’s because many developers are moving away from models of high-end courses that are out of reach for many Americans. Meanwhile, other developers are looking to repurpose financially challenged courses for residential developments, industrial parks, and, most recently, data centers.

“It’s sad for golf,” Karen said of the course’s sale and closure. “Golf, when you look at this, you get close to the course, there’s sadness all around it. It’s a very valid emotion, because there’s something about our game that makes people want the golf course to exist. They want their friends and family and others to experience it. When a golf course closes, it’s one less opportunity for people to play golf. Golfers understand that.”

When someone dangles a $20 million or $40 million check, that’s economics at work, right?

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Wayne Fleming isn’t like that. Although he is an avid golfer, he lives across the street from Dauphin Highlands, plays the course from time to time, and deeply appreciates the green space it provides.

When asked about the benefits of living near the course, Fleming, 63, a public health worker, said, “It’s not a park, but it’s the next best thing.” Dauphin Heights also has sentimental value for Fleming. Before the property became a golf course, it was a corporate retreat for Bethlehem Steel and a popular spot for wedding receptions. Fleming celebrated her wedding there in 1987.

Mr. Fleming maintains that the shuttered steel mill around the corner from the course would make a more logical site for a data center, but he is not holding out hope, calling the Dauphin Highlands conversion a “fait accompli.” If the data center becomes a reality, Fleming worries about the resulting noise pollution, as well as the loss of some of the lush views he enjoyed when he pulled out of the development. He also believes the facility won’t take over the course’s entire property, speculating that a new owner could be induced to build more than just a data center on the land.

“Once they own the property, they’ll be able to push through whatever they want,” he says. “What if someone says they want to put a trucking company there or they want to put an office building there? That’s what I’m most concerned about.” (Those questions are best asked of Dauphin County Central Authority officials, but all declined to be interviewed for this article.)

When Fleming argued that a developer would need far less land to build a data center than the golf course, I told him about the possible sale of Briarwood Golf Club and the town’s Board of Supervisors chairman’s idea of ​​finding a happy solution by preserving nine holes and building a data center.

Fleming said he had not considered such an option at Dauphin Highlands, but it was a “great idea” to try to preserve part of the course.

But Dauphin regulars aren’t particularly optimistic about the prospects for the course’s survival and are already discussing where to hold weekly league games, according to Rick Simonick.

“The view of our staff seems to be that we shouldn’t fight City Hall,” Simonick said. “There are other courses in this area, but we’re just losing one of the better courses. We’re kind of resigned to our fate.”

The author welcomes comments at alan.bastable@golf.com.

This Muni just sold for nearly $50 million. Here’s why other courses might come first in golf next.