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HARLINGEN — Eight years after its new owner began working to upgrade the course, the Treasure Hills Golf Club is up for sale, raising questions about the status of a proposed $1 billion project aimed at developing “Treasure Hills City,” planned as a 30-acre residential and commercial center featuring the Rio Grande Valley’s “Little Wall Street” across a village of condominiums and townhouses standing along a river walk and an LPGA golf course.
On May 25, Fairways Advisors announced the 189-acre golf club is up for sale after new owner ViRaj Golf upgraded the course that’s driving players there.
“We have decided to bring the club to market due to the growing interest in golf and the increased revenues,” the owner stated. “Revenues have significantly increased since 2015, with 2022 reaching an all-time high. Golf in general and Treasure Hills specifically have been a beneficiary of the interest in golf born during COVID.”
In 2015, ViRaj Golf purchased the golf club, whose course was designed by acclaimed architect Robert Trent Jones Sr.
“Treasure Hills is one of the Rio Grande Valley’s best layouts,” Jeff Davis, Fairway Advisors’ president, stated. “The club was the former host of the Adams Tight Lies Tour, which is a testament to the quality of its design.”
In 1991, the club opened as a daily-fee golf course.
“Treasure Hills is situated on 189 acres,” Davis stated. “There is another 70 acres of reserved land adjacent to the golf course suitable for residential development, which can be included in a sale. This is a unique opportunity to acquire a well-designed golf course for substantially less than replacement cost. We expect to complete the sale of the golf course and the reserve land in short order.”
‘Treasure Hills City’
The golf club’s sale is raising questions about McAllen-based EKO Corporate’s planned development of what it has called Treasure Hills City, a proposed 30-acre project abutting the Treasure Hills Golf Course, developer Miguel Del Valle told city commissioners during a meeting in October 2021.
At City Hall, City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez is questioning whether the developer is going ahead with the project.
“I don’t think it’s going forward — haven’t heard from the developer,” he stated.
On May 25, Del Valle, who could not be reached at EKO Corporate, did not respond to a private message sent to his Facebook page, which describes him as “president & CEO at Treasure Hills City.”
We have decided to bring the club to market due to the growing interest in golf and the increased revenues. Revenues have significantly increased since 2015, with 2022 reaching an all-time high. Golf in general and Treasure Hills specifically have been a beneficiary of the interest in golf born during COVID.
‘Little Wall Street’
At the time of the project’s announcement, Del Valle, a Monterrey developer, told commissioners he was planning to launch the project’s first phase the following year in 2022 — a 149-lot development of three-story townhouses and condominiums along with two two-story office buildings.
Within about three years, he said, he planned to build 2,100 condominiums.
During an eight-year period, he was planning to expand the development into a $1 billion real estate and commercial village, he told commissioners.
During the meeting, Del Valle described the proposed village as “the largest development in the area,” planning a financial center he described as “the little Wall Street or the financial district of the RGV area,” featuring two 14-floor towers housing corporate offices.
Across the sprawling project site, Del Valle proposed building two 20-story towers housing 600 condominiums along with a 250-room hotel featuring a 100,000-square-foot clubhouse facing the golf course’s 18th hole.
Del Valle said he was promoting the project around the golf course, working to turn it into the home of the Ladies Professional Golf Association, adding he wanted “the LPGA relocated to Harlingen within the next two years.”
Along the development, he planned a one-third-mile river walk “longer than San Antonio’s River Walk,” proposing a residential development featuring wide avenues lined with restaurants and gyms, with apartments selling from $150,000 to $400,000.
