Major developer Stevens Group has lodged plans for a retirement village on part of Newcastle Golf Club with three five-storey apartment buildings, villas and a community centre.
The $108 million Fern Bay project will turn the National Trust-listed course's 16th, 17th and 18th holes along Nelson Bay Road into a seniors living complex with 125 apartments, 337 parking spaces, 35 villas, 12 duplexes and a bowling green.
Principle Living, a partnership between Stevens Group and Sue Mann Nursing and Community Care, has lodged a development application with Port Stephens Council after eight years of talks between the club's hierarchy and potential developers.
Prominent developer and ex-Newcastle lord mayor Jeff McCloy was formerly involved in the Principle Living partnership, and at one point the club was in talks with Woolworths about building a supermarket.
The new "Apperly Village" plans double the number of apartments first proposed in a conditional agreement with the club in 2019 but reduce the number of other dwellings from 80 to 47.
The private golf club's members voted in 2016 to investigate redevelopment proposals to shore up its finances and in 2020 voted to proceed with the Principle Living project.
The development application says the club's "long trading history demonstrates it is not generating sufficient revenues to renew its infrastructure and be sustainable in the long term".
The club succeeded in subdividing the course in 2021 to accommodate the seniors village and won council approval in October last year to reconfigure the course and build new holes.
The proposed development would be the fourth retirement village in Fern Bay and one of several proposed or built at Hunter golf courses in recent years to help struggling clubs.
The developers have proposed vehicles enter the six-hectare site directly off Nelson Bay Road to avoid building over part of the land reserved for its high Aboriginal heritage significance.
Newcastle Golf Club was once rated the 10th best course in Australia but has slipped in the Australian Golf Digest rankings to 30.
