china Tianjin’s Piece of the Rose Rock

A U.S. company with investment funds potentially worth $2 billion is looking to build at least three golf courses in China.

Rose Rock Capital, a firm controlled by Stephen Rockefeller, is already involved in two projects in Tianjin, the nation’s sixth-largest city: a golf course to be designed by Gil Hanse and a 150-story skyscraper whose design was reportedly inspired by Rockefeller Center in New York City. These days the firm is working with a Chinese entity, Tianjin Finance Investment Company, to raise as much as $2 billion that would be used for real estate development in Tianjin and other cities in the People’s Republic.

Rose Rock’s first golf course, an 18-hole track capable of hosting professional tournaments, will be the centerpiece of a 100-house community at East Port, on Tianjin’s rapidly growing waterfront. The community will occupy just a small sliver of East Port, which is emerging on more than 7,400 acres of reclaimed land around China’s largest port. Sometime in the not too distant future, the place will be full of houses, hotels, shopping and entertainment areas, a marina, and many other attractions, including a performing arts center that will be built with design assistance from New York’s Lincoln Center. The area currently has what’s been called “a marginal population,” but within 10 years it’s expected to swell to 150,000.

Rose Rock is developing its course with the property’s owner, Binhai Landmark. The partners hope to break ground on the golf course this year, but the moratorium on golf construction in China, for which there seems to be no end in sight, will likely delay construction.

While Rose Rock awaits the green light at East Port, it’s exploring other options. The firm hopes to develop at least two more golf properties in China, and Wayne Morrison, the head of the firm’s sports and leisure group, says a site in Dalian (in Liaoning Province) has already been eye-balled.

“We’d like to do more in Tianjin,” says Morrison, “but we also want to diversify into other areas, maybe with other development groups.”

It’s possible that Hanse will be involved in the design of the other courses, although Rose Rock may work with other architects as well.

Hanse’s to-do list includes one other course in China, an 18-hole layout for TPC Beijing. Of course, these days most of his attention is focused on Rio de Janeiro, where next month he starts construction on the golf course that will serve as the venue for the golf competition at the 2016 Olympics.

The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the July 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.