Glen Meadows Golf and Country Club has reportedly been sold.
While details are slim at the moment, it has been reported that the 130-plus-acre golf course in North Saanich has been sold to an offshore individual.
The real estate listing with Victoria’s Newmark Knight Frank Devencore states there’s a sale pending on the property — a 129-acre golf course and 2.34 acre parking lot.
The golf course property was listed back on May 4, 2016, after a failed bid to redevelop the site at was presented to the community in 2014.. The owners, the Criddle family, had approached the District of North Saanich to subdivide the property — giving 100 acres to the municipality as agricultural land and retaining 30 acres to develop into large-lot estates, each home with its own farm-able plot of land. North Saanich rejected that proposal. At the time, the family and its representative stated that if the proposal didn’t work, they would seek to sell the property. Even then, there were rumours that the land would be sold to offshore interests.
Had the development plan gone ahead, it could have been the first golf course turned into agricultural land in the history of B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve.
In the real estate company’s initial offering in 2016, the property was listed at $5.88 million for the 129-acre golf course and another $888,000 for the parking lot — for a total of $6.77 million.
Glen Meadows is owned by Percy Criddle and his family. They purchased the land and built the golf course in 1961. It opened for business in 1965. The Criddle family is ready to retie, according to the real estate company’s website, and that’s why they are selling.
“We are very proud of our lifetime’s work in relation to the development and operation of the Club so this decision to sell has been very difficult for the family” stated Percy Criddle in a media release back in 2016. “But the golf industry has presented significant challenges in recent years and the time has come for new ownership with fresh ideas and additional capital to revitalize and enhance the property for the next generation.”
The site also includes a tennis court, added in 1968, and a curling rink, built first in the mid-1970s and replaced in 1997 after the original structure was damaged by snowfall. The original clubhouse was built in 1965 and expanded over the years.
