poland Coal Comfort

A coal mine in southern Poland is about to find new life as a golf community.

It’s the Szombierki mine in Bytom, a northwestern suburb of Katowice. An affiliate of Armada Development SA owns the 250-acre property, where it plans to build single-family houses, some retail and commercial areas, and an 18-hole golf course that’s been co-designed by Christoph Stadler and Christian Althaus of Munster, Germany-based Stadler Golf Courses.

The most visually arresting element on the property is the mine’s 15-story hoisting tower, which will be transformed into a 50-room hotel with some apartments, office space, a restaurant, stores, and a recreation center. The tower is a protected structure -– the developers call it “a gem of the modernist industrial architecture” -– that can’t be torn down.

Armada purchased the site from the state, and it hopes to acquire more than 500 acres of additional state-owned property in the future. Michael Golis, the company’s primary stockholder, also owns a local Toyota dealership and, perhaps more importantly, the city’s professional soccer team.

Golis broke ground on Bytom Golf Club’s first nine last fall and expects to open it in late 2011. The course’s second nine will take shape on property that’s still being mined, and work on it won’t begin until 2012 or 2013.

Stadler has designed several golf courses in Germany, including 27-hole complexes at Semlin am See Golf Club in Brandenburg and Golf Club Wittenbeck in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

He and another associate, Joachim Reinmuth, have co-designed an 18-hole course for Golfclub Haxterpark, which is under construction in Paderborn. The construction is expected to wrap up in the spring, and the course will likely open next year.