Hikers can soon check out Summit Metro Parks’ $4 million purchase: the former Valley View Golf Club in Akron.
The park district will host an open house on the 194-acre property from noon to 3 p.m. Oct. 16. Visitors can hike the property or take free tractor-pulled wagon rides.
The district plans to use the land — off Cuyahoga Street — to link three adjacent parks and to connect to the Ohio & Erie Towpath Trail along the Cuyahoga River. The trail runs along the western edge of the land.
The district will not operate a golf course.
The purchase — long anticipated — was finalized Thursday.
“This is the missing piece,” Metro Parks Executive Director Lisa King said Thursday afternoon, as she stood outside the onetime clubhouse of the former golf course that had been in operation for more than 50 years.
“Look on a map and you see the Cascade Valley, Sand Run and Gorge [Metro] parks, King said. “There’s a hole in the middle and that’s this property. We are very excited” to acquire the land.
The acreage will become known as the Valley View Area of Cascade Valley; that park’s Oxbow Area is just across the street. District officials — who have been in talks to buy the land since early last year — say they will restore the property to a more natural state. This process will take several years.
A connection to the Towpath Trail likely will be the first portion of the land that will be open to the public on a regular basis. District officials hope this connector can be open sometime late next year.
“A lot of the land will be reforested,” Metro Parks spokesman Nate Eppink said. “There could be a network of hiking trails” established.
At the open house, park district employees will be on hand to share ideas for the property.
King said district officials would like to relocate a more than 100-year-old barn structure — now part of the former clubhouse — and use it to create an events facility on a portion of the property with a view of the river.
“We’ve got some ideas, he said. “We’d like the public to share their ideas as well.”
A master plan will be developed, with input from biologists, Eppink said.
With the former golf course and the adjacent parks, Metro Parks plans to form its second-largest contiguous natural area, comprised of 1,700 acres.
Only the 3,000-acre Liberty Park, in northeast Summit County (and, partly, northwestern Portage County) would be larger.
At the former golf course, more than 2,000 linear feet of the Cuyahoga River and 65 acres of floodplain have restoration potential, district officials said. A large drainage network, including 10 ponds, could be restored to wetlands and stream habitats.
Valley View Golf Club closed last year. Metro Parks officials began discussions with owners of the family-owned golf course before the business closed.
Valley View began with the vision of Carl Springer, who died in 2012.
In the 1950s, Springer saw an 87-acre farm for sale on Cuyahoga Street and pictured a golf course. The property was the last dairy farm in the city. A few years later, he opened the first nine holes at Valley View; he added nine more in the late 1950s.
In 1971, Springer bought the Sycamore Valley Golf Course in the Merriman Valley of Akron and redesigned it.
He added nine more holes to Valley View in 1975.
Springer, who worked as a caddie as a boy and later as a greenskeeper, spoke of his vision for the dairy farm in a 1987 Beacon Journal story.
“People said, ‘You can’t do nothing with that land,’ ” Springer said. “The contour was just right for a course.”
His son, Gary, ran Valley View and remains in charge at Sycamore.
Summit Metro Parks manages more than 14,100 acres, including 16 developed parks, several conservation areas and more than 125 miles of trails.
In 2013, Summit County voters approved a seven-year, 1.46-mill renewal levy that at the time was estimated to collect $15.8 million a year and cost the owners of a $100,000 home about $45 a year. The levy, which provides money for the district’s operations, maintenance and capital expenses, had last been renewed in 2006.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.