WILMINGTON — As the year ends, New Castle County is preparing to enter the upcoming year with the papers on a new park for new homes on a bulk of land at Hercules Country Club.
The 30 acres west of Hercules Road and south of Lancaster Pike was donated by the Pettinaro Company to the county on Dec. 10, valued at $6 million. The donation bookended the years of uncertainty around the Hercules Country Club, later known as Delaware National Country Club, after two developers previously tried their hand at turning it into a sizable housing development.
Pettinaro also donated $70,000 to help start maintenance on the site.
“New Castle County prioritizes open space and pathway connections. This donation will continue the great work of our Public Works department in achieving our open space and connectivity goals,” New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer said in a prepared statement to the Delaware Business Times. “In addition, the financial contribution will help the county to maintain the property for the foreseeable future.”
No plans have been announced by New Castle County for the future park, though it has long been at the heart of a debate for many in the Hockessin and Mill Run area to preserve what is considered to be Delaware’s oldest country club. First opened in 1936 as Hercules Country Club, the site served as an 18-hole golf course for executives of the former chemical company Hercules, a DuPont spin-off.
Pettinaro bought the land in 2009 for $9.2 million and had signed a lease to keep the golf course but it eventually closed in 2010. The Toll Brothers then planned 260 luxury homes for the area with a mortgage backed by Pettinaro. Those plans were paused when a traffic impact study found that the project would cause traffic congestion and required significant upgrades to both Centerville Road and Lancaster Pike.
After several appeals on the county’s decision that led to the state’s highest court and was later upheld the county’s decision in the end, Toll Brothers walked away. Pettinaro then tried its hand to develop 250 homes alone.
The New Castle County Council approved those plans in 2020, including $4 million in infrastructure improvements. But in the last two years, Pettinaro started to sell part of the 300 acres to NVR Inc., the parent company of Ryan Homes for around $15 million in the last two years.
By now, NVR has completed much of the site work necessary for redevelopment and has already sold a few homes with prices for Delaware National townhomes advertised around the mid-$600,000s.
As the last 30 acres is on sloped land, Pettinaro Company CEO Gregory Pettinaro said it would be challenging for his company or any other developer to build there. The cost of that project, weighed against the neighborhood’s interest in preserving some of the land, makes the solution a little clearer.
In 2020, a group of neighbors had united under the name Hold On To Hercules to preserve it as a natural open space. In a Facebook group, neighbors had periodically kept track of the local birds and wildlife on the site and hoped to preserve the golf course trails as walking paths. Hold On To Hercules also documented advocacy efforts, including hosting meetings, distributing signs and unsuccessfully lobbying for state funds.
“We could have built 19 lots, but looking at the profit, there wasn’t enough there to develop it and the community really wanted this,” he said. “Everyone has to be a little community-minded and I think it’ll be a great park even for the new development there. It would also give a great connection to the trailways they have there that connect to other paths.”
The land donation is the latest in a year of change for Pettinaro. The Newport-based real estate company in has been quietly changing its business strategy, starting with transitioning commercial property management to CBRE. Later on, the company transferred the residential management to Buccini/Pollin Group for 3,000 apartments in Delaware and Elkton, Md.
That leaves Pettinaro free to start the new year fresh to look at its construction and development business.
“Everyone’s getting a little older, and the business is changing,” said Pettinaro, who followed his father Verino into the business as a young man. “We just want to focus on what we do really well, which is development rather than property management. We still have things in the pipeline.”
