Former Windsor Sand Pit May Become Top Golf Course

An overgrown sand pit bordering the Windsor Raceway may soon be transformed into a high-end daily-fee golf course. The facility will be the first privately owned golf course in the city of Windsor since the closing of Twin Oaks more than a decade ago. The project is being developed by Coco Development Group, which submitted plans for the project to Windsor’s planning department in January 2002.

Besides the course, to be designed by award-winning Canadian architect, Thomas McBroom, Coco Development plans to develop 188 townhouse-style condominiums on the 196-acre parcel. The site is located at the corner of Ojibway Parkway and Sprucewood Avenue. The housing units will border the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th holes off Machette Road and Morton Avenue. Also planned is a clubhouse and practice facility.

Coco Development owns two other properties next to the race track. The company plans to convert those areas into entertainment uses, with a hotel, restaurants, family-style facilities and cinemas among the ideas being discussed. An ice park and/or arena has also been mentioned. Local officials have generally praised the project next to Windsor Raceway. Faye Langmaid, coordinator design and development for Windsor’s parks department, told the Windsor Star, “This is a good site for a golf course. It’s been basically bombed,” she said, referring to the site’s previous incarnation as a sand-mining operation. “There’s nothing of (environmental) value on this site.”

Coco Development could get approvals and permits for the project in late-February 2002, with work starting later this spring on the unnamed project.