Alvamar Golf and Country Club leaders have confirmed they have reached a preliminary deal to sell the prominent west Lawrence property to Bliss Sports, a group that Lawrence builder Thomas Fritzel founded to facilitate the public-private partnership at Rock Chalk Park.

Fritzel hasn’t yet filed any plans for the Alvamar property, but as the project moves forward, it will be interesting to see whether any Rock Chalk Park ghosts come back to haunt the new effort.

Alvamar’s future apparently will involve an expanded partnership with Kansas University’s golf program. The Kansas Athletics website indicates that “exciting changes are in the works” for the Knapheide Family Practice Facility at Alvamar. The Jayhawks, in partnership with the Williams Education Fund and Treanor Architects, it says, have started the process of raising funds to make the practice facility five times larger, adding more indoor practice space, along with team lounges and locker rooms for both the men’s and women’s teams.

It sounds like a great project.

There is no mention on the website of who will build the new facility. Is having Bliss Sports do the construction part of the deal? Bliss Sports owns the facilities at Rock Chalk Park and leases them to KU for athletic events. The university probably would want to maintain ownership of the indoor golf facility, but what will the arrangement be for KU use of the golf course? Will the KU Endowment Association be involved in the deal? What, if anything, did Kansas Athletics or Endowment officials learn from the Rock Chalk Park deal that might guide their decisions about the Alvamar partnership?

City officials certainly should have learned something from the Rock Chalk Park deal that could affect their decision on any public incentives or partnership with Bliss Sports and/or KU on the Alvamar project. The public-private partnership involved in Rock Chalk Park left the city spending millions of public tax dollars for infrastructure without even being able to see the itemized bills, which one of the private partners refused to share. Fritzel hasn’t indicated whether he will seek any public incentives at Alvamar or what kind of incentives those might be, but, if such a request is made, the city should be sure to nail down the financial details in a better way than they did with Rock Chalk Park.

The Alvamar club and golf course and the surrounding housing developments embodied the vision of Lawrence businessman Bob Billings and have been a true community gem. Hopefully, the new owner’s plans for that property will respect that legacy and build Alvamar into an even greater asset for Lawrence.