PENINSULA, Ohio — The Conservancy for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park has purchased the former Brandywine Golf Course, ensuring the land will become part of the CVNP, and not commercially developed as some locals feared.

What You Need To Know

  • The purchase ensures the Brandywine Golf Course will become part of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park

  • The property comprises 215 acres along Akron-Peninsula Road, running parallel with the Cuyahoga River

  • The conservancy will retain 15 acres of the property and begin a master-planning process

  • The conservancy’s planning process will look closely at creating public river access

The purchase, which the conservancy said is a first for the organization, was possible because of donations from individuals and a philanthropic network that included Akron Community Foundation, Connor Foundation, GAR Foundation and National Park Foundation, said Deb Yandala, president of the conservancy, which works to support and preserve the national park.

“It’s just a unique opportunity to preserve really precious land and to think long-term about what is best for the region,” she said. “Parks are so important to northeast Ohio and the opportunity to add parkland and public land is just a really great opportunity, not just for us, but for the community as well.”

All but 15 acres of the Brandywine property will be sold to the national park, Yandala said. The conservancy plans to begin a master-planning process right away for those 15 acres, looking closely at public river access. The public will be brought into the master planning process for input.

“We will do a fair amount of public engagement with this and listen to the public. We want to reach out to communities who may not historically have been engaged in park building, and really ask them what they want in a national park,” she said. “We're really excited about it because we're an urban park and we touch Cleveland and Akron, north and south.”

The Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit that works to preserve land, had been taking steps to purchase the property, which was put on the market in 2018. But undergoing a required federal appraisal of the land was taking a long time, Yandala said.

In the meantime, interest was mounting from other potential buyers who were not interested in preserving the property as parkland, but potentially developing it, she said. So the Trust for Public Land turned to the conservancy, which has fewer restrictions and is able to move quickly in such matters.

“The Trust for Public Land started the conversation with the sellers and they did a remarkable job of having the sellers be interested in seeing that the land was sold in a way that would protect it for the national park,” she said. “We were kind of picking up from where they left off.”

The property comprises 215 acres along Akron-Peninsula Road, which the citizen-action coalition Preserve the Valley has been closely watching.

Over the past two years, the group has been at odds with developers building housing on land adjacent to the national park.

Since its inception, Preserve the Valley has wanted to work with local municipalities to create a master plan that guides development and land use in the Merriman Valley, which borders the national park to the south. The group has advocated for the process to include input from citizens and local businesses.

In February, Preserve the Valley publicly opposed the density and zoning of a development at the former Riverwood Golf Course also on Akron-Peninsula Road just south of the Brandywine Golf Club. It also opposed development of city-owned Theiss Woods, a triangle of land nearby.

“A lot of people who care about the National Park and maintaining the park character, especially along the Cuyahoga River, are really thrilled,” Yandala said of the Brandywine sale. “We're getting a lot of good responses.”

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