One of New York’s largest operators of homeless shelters says it won’t be taking on Donald Trump’s troubled Bronx golf course after all.
Just two days after the city appeared to have found a group to run the facility, an attorney for CORE Services Group, Inc. said in an email to executives that the nonprofit “has decided to withdraw from consideration,” The City reported.
The deal was announced in a notice published Monday that revealed the city’s plans to award a company called Ferry Point Links LLC a 13-year deal with the Parks Department to take over the 18-hole course. As reported earlier by The City, the group shares an executive’s name — Jack Brown — and a mailing address with CORE Community Services.
The new operator would have come months after Mayor de Blasio announced that New York City was ending its business relationship with Donald Trump.
A Department of Parks and Recreation spokesperson previously told the outlet that CORE was set to partner with Atlanta-based firm Bobby Jones Links, which would handle management of the course. The agency confirmed the organization’s withdrawal to TRD and that the company would proceed as the course’s operator.
“We are happy to say, that as Bobby Jones Links’ intended operator role made up 90 percent of the responsibilities proposed, we will continue the process with them as the new course operator as planned,” a Department of Parks and Recreation spokesperson said in a statement.
Bobby Jones Links did not respond to a request for comment.
The Parks Department and city Franchise and Concession Review Committee are set to hold a hearing on Oct. 12. The new contract would begin Nov. 15, one day after the Trump Organization’s deadline to leave the course.
The Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course represents one of four contracts the city reviewed and ultimately canceled in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Two Central Park ice rinks, the Central Park Carousel and the golf course in the Bronx reaped about $17 million in revenue annually for the Trump Organization, according to the former president’s financial disclosures reported by The Washington Post.
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization told the New York Times the move amounted to “political discrimination” and promised the company would fight the city’s decision “vigorously.” However, the city defended its legal footing by claiming that Trump had reneged on a promise to attract a major tournament to the course.
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