Sound Shore

The Hampshire Country Club in Mamaroneck is reviewing final bids for its property and it’s likely the town and village of Mamaroneck won’t be getting it, multiple officials confirmed to me today.

“We’re still interested in it but we’re not going to go into a bidding war,” village mayor Norm Rosenblum told me this afternoon. “We’ve made our position known to the Hampshire Country Club but they’ve said ‘Thank you very much, but we’ve received more interesting offers.’”

He said while the village and town haven’t backed down in their joint interest in purchasing the 108-acre property, he classified the joint municipal bid as being on the club’s “backburner.”

Club president Stan Brettschneider did not want to comment on Mamaroneck’s role in the negotiations but confirmed the club is reviewing final bids. He did not want to disclose who those bids were from citing confidentiality. He emphasized no deal has been finalized.

“We’ve had final offers on this and we hope to resolve this conclusion,” he said. “Nothing is final until our membership votes on the proposals that have been received.”

Brettschneider said the club wants to move sooner rather than later on a sale, given the fact the closed property is a new target for vandals and is becoming a burden to maintain with nobody operating it.

“That was always one of our priorities to move the property along as quickly as possible so it retains the most value,” he said. “We don’t want it remain as a property that’s sitting idle.”

Although Brettschneider didn’t mention Mamaroneck specifically, that may explain why their bid isn’t at the top of their list. Given the fact the club wants to move fast, both municipalities would have to go things such as public hearings, zoning changes and other civic processes that would extend the time it would take to buy the property.