Edinburg begins $7M transformation of Ebony Hills Golf Course near downtown

Longtime resident Bill Carlson, president of the Friends of Ebony Hills Golf Course, a nonprofit organization in Edinburg dedicated to the preservation of the park space for the entire community, can envision the next generation of the 63-acre urban green space near the city’s downtown, county courthouse, and state college campus. 

“It’s more than just a golf course,” Carlson said, noting that there’s an ecotourism draw for birders from around the globe because of the ebony trees, and it’s an event space for community events in addition to golf. “There’s so many times we could have easily lost this property; we’re blessed to have it.” 

Carlson has been involved with the local community’s park space since the 1990s and is a past president of the Edinburg Rotary Club, a civic organization in the city, and is on the golf advisory board. He remembers when the Albertson’s grocery store looked to purchase two acres of the old golf course in the 1990s. 

More than a decade ago, the Friends of Ebony Hills petitioned the residents of Edinburg to vote in favor of enabling the city to acquire the property from private landowners after it was discovered the land was leased with a deed restriction from the original country club owners. 

The Ebony Hills Improvement Company, the country club owners, sold the property to the city of Edinburg in 2014 for $4.25 million for the 9-hole course, according to The Monitor’s newspaper archives, which included a letter to the shareholders, of whom there were more than 500. 

The company’s 50-year lease to the city had expired in 2013, and it took a previous amendment to the city’s economic development corporation rules approved by voters at the time to enable the EDC to help finance the deal. The change enabled the EDC to use economic development financing for park and recreation space. 

“That’s how we were able to purchase Ebony from the original stockholders; the proposition passed with a little over 70% [of the vote] I think,” Carlson said. 

In 2014, the $4.25 million sale closed in a deal that included $2.2 million up front, then the remaining $2 million financed with a 5% interest rate. The property taxes were not affected because the city issued $2.3 million in bonds backed by sales and property taxes. 

Carlson said the Friends of Ebony Hills was incorporated in 2019, and in 2023 the group came up with a five-year master plan in collaboration with the city and golfers to help improve the public space. 

The group considered renovating the old golf clubhouse, but there was too much asbestos remediation required, and it would have been a costly endeavor, Carlson said. 

Edinburg also recently inked a deal to contract with a golf management company, Troon, to operate the course on a daily basis — something the nonprofit friends group is optimistic about being an improvement. 

“I know that this place will boom, and it’s all because it started with that five-year master plan,” Carlson said. 

Edinburg Mayor Omar Ochoa said he learned how to play golf from a young age at Ebony Hills. 

Ochoa said the big transformation is an economic development investment since it will have a new clubhouse, a new golf management company, a fresh workforce development center, and will be surrounded by employers in the region looking to train their existing employees or host job fairs to hire workers. 

While some are concerned about saving the historic building rather than demolishing it, Ochoa said it’s not an original structure dating back a century, but the new building and golf course transformation has the potential to be something special near its growing downtown. 

“The golf clubhouse behind us is not 100 years old; the original 1927 golf clubhouse was actually leveled, and a new building was built in the 1970s. So we are carrying on the proud tradition by starting something brand new that our citizens are ready for,” Ochoa said. 

The next challenge will be ensuring the course is watered efficiently and effectively, using modern water conservation efforts. For example, there was an old swimming pool on the property that was fed by the irrigation canal, which has since been covered up. Now the long-term drought has affected some of the landscaping. 

“We have lost a lot of ebonies and trees, obviously, in the last five years because of the lack of water, so we’re really needing to upgrade the amount of trees we have out there,” Carlson, of the friend’s group, said. 

Ochoa has promised to help secure the city’s water supply for the future by diversifying its portfolio, which includes exploration of groundwater resources for which the city has already been awarded a grant. 

“Edinburg has plenty of water; everything is going great on that, but we need a plan for the future, which is why we are looking into alternate sources of water. We got some federal funding for a ground-source water project that we’re very excited about,” Ochoa said. “This is such a treasure to have such a large green space literally in the middle of town. So you see it used as a flex space by the city on occasion.” 

For example, the July 4th celebration for the city hosted about 20,000 people on the golf course this year. 

Ebony Hills has never had a modern irrigation system with sprinklers installed; instead, workers have hand-watered the course with the canal system for the past century. 

“So to really modernize the course and the way that it’s getting taken care of, the city does need to install an irrigation system,” Ochoa said. 

The Edinburg council previously approved an interlocal agreement with the Edinburg Economic Development Corporation for the $7 million workforce resources center. 

The new 12,000-square-foot multi-purpose center will be built inside the Ebony Hills Golf Course near West Freddy Gonzalez Drive and U.S. Business 281, across from the city’s public library. 

Edinburg-based construction company Gerlach Builders is overseeing the project, and McAllen-based Raine Architects is handling design. 

Raudel Garza, Edinburg EDC’s executive director, told the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal that a workforce development center has been a quality-of-life priority for several years and the EDC has been searching for the right property as a good investment. 

“What we found is that people wanted additional training [space], the employers were asking for their employees or people who were seeking jobs and wanted to get upskilled, so we started talking to STC, to Workforce Solutions, and now Troon. Also to UTRGV,” Garza said. “All of them said, we can offer different types of courses based on the demand that those employers are asking.” 

The existing golf course clubhouse and cart barn will be demolished, and the new building will house the golf clubhouse and simulated indoor golf bays on the first floor. The second floor will offer meeting space, offices, and classroom space for a new workforce resources center. 

“It’s flexible enough where they can have some mini-job fairs, short-term certification programs, or even long-term training, whether it be financial literacy or [English as a Second Language] or anything like that which comes up,” Garza said. 

The project is funded in part by Edinburg EDC bond money, stemming from its 2019 bond plan, of which $1.8 million was earmarked for the center. Another $2 million from the EDC’s budget will be allocated to the project. 

Since it took the EDC so many years to secure a site for the new workforce development center, there was a windfall of money because the bond was invested and accrued interest, which the EDC is now putting to work, Garza said. 

Garza is hopeful that the new pro shop will have an attractive restaurant and hospitality tenant that will be attractive to local businesses in the area, as there’s a growing workforce expected with Zoho Corporation at the former Echo Hotel campus, the park’s connection to downtown Edinburg and the Hidalgo County courthouse, and the new Hidalgo County Appraisal District building nearby. 

“There’s a lot of employment activity in this area; there’s going to be a lot more activity afterward when people get off of work, the restaurant within the proshop within this building is gonna be probably pretty busy,” Garza said. 

Editor’s Note: At the time of the Ebony Hills Golf Course sale to Edinburg, Rio Grande Valley Business Journal publisher Ramiro Garza Jr. held the role of city manager for Edinburg.