Company with 5 MS Coast apartment complexes has big plans for Great Southern Golf Club
The Great Southern Golf Club in Gulfport has been sold, yet the name will remain as the property transitions into a housing community.
The sale is complete on the property on U.S. 90, just west of DeBuys Road that is the border between Gulfport and Biloxi.
Arbor Properties, based in Tallahassee, Florida, purchased the site overlooking the Mississippi Sound.
The company has a history of 25 to 30 years on the Coast, as the builder and operator of several apartment communities: Arbor Place and Arbor Landing on the River in Biloxi, Arbor View in D’Iberville, Arbor Village in Gulfport and Arbor Station in Long Beach.
“We intend to keep the name, The Great Southern,” said Gordon Thames, president of Arbor Properties.
The developer said his company maintains a “very cooperative relationship” with the golf course board and has an agreement to let them keep the course open through April 30, 2022.
It’s going to take that long to complete design and permitting — “Why not let everyone continue to enjoy it,” he said.
Once construction begins on the front of the property, the golf club can continue to operate on the back nine holes until June 2023.
While the course has one of the premiere locations and views on the Coast, it couldn’t operate profitably in recent years. The golf course was built in 1908, and Great Southern Golf Club filed for bankruptcy in 2019 to restructure the $4 million debt accumulated on the 129-acre property since Hurricane Katrina.
Trees, trails, a pool and other amenities
“We’re really trying to design something both us and the community can be proud of for a long time,” Thames said.
It’s still very early, he said, but the preliminary design of Great Southern calls for 480 to 530 single-family home lots.
“We want to save some of of those big, beautiful oak trees,” he said. Doing so will cut back on the number of homes that can be built, he said, but will add to the beauty and quality of life for residents.
Also in the tentative plans are renovating the golf clubhouse for homeowner gatherings and parties, including walking trails and building a swimming pool and possibly pickleball courts.
How will home plans be priced?
“Our roots originally were in single-family,” Thames said, and Arbor Properties intends to build the homes at Great Southern so they aren’t cookie cutter, but look like they belong on the same street.
Most of the homes will be three- and four-bedrooms, he said, with more luxury homes fronting the beach. Prices will range from the low $300,000s to those on the beach that could approach $1 million homes, he said.
“We’ve had meetings with the designers,” he said, and laid out the targets and goals to accomplish with this new development.
The homes Arbor Properties has built at other locations have modern features like open floor plans, large pantries and walk-in closets, plus an outdoor space.
Since Hurricane Katrina, Arbor Properties rebuilt and built about 1,100 apartments on the Coast.
Information about the new Great Southern community soon will be available on a new website, Thames said.
This story was originally published July 8, 2021 at 12:07 PM.
