Rodeo Dunes golf resort in early permitting stages

ROGGEN — A public golf resort with courses designed by some of the sports’ big names could blossom in the next few years on the rolling, sandy plains of Weld County, north of Roggen.

Called Rodeo Dunes, the project is envisioned on more than 2,000 acres, including sand dunes up to 85 feet high, and could hold up to six 18-hole courses, a short course and a putting course, its developers have said.

According to documents filed with the Weld County assessor, Rodeo Dunes LLC, registered to golf course developers from Chicago-based Dream Golf, purchased 10 roughly adjacent parcels from Cervi Enterprises Inc. to design and build the complex, which would be located off Interstate 76 50 miles from downtown Denver and 42 miles from Denver International Airport.

“We had a pre-application meeting with them in the middle of February,” said Chris Gathman with the Weld County Planning Department. “They’re about to submit a zoning-permit application, and then it will  be reviewed by environmental health. That can take up to 21 days. As soon as it’s gone through completeness review, we’ll follow back up with them. Then we will accept the application fee and start the process. They’re doing it in phases.”

Developers Michael and Chris Keiser, who first announced the project last April, are the owners of Sand Valley Golf Resort in Wisconsin and the sons of Mike Keiser, who owns and developed the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon.

The elder Keiser and a partner founded the Recycled Paper Greeting Card company in 1971, then sold it to American Greetings in 2009. Keiser took that profit and founded Dream Golf.

His sons announced last April that construction on Rodeo Dunes would begin last summer and the resort would be open by 2025. Neither representatives of Dream Golf nor Rodeo Dunes returned calls for more information on the resort or to explain the delay.

Course designers including retired PGA champion Ben Crenshaw have routed some of the holes on the property. Crenshaw and Bill Coore designed the Colorado Golf Club in Parker and the Sand Hill Golf Club in Mullen, Nebraska.

“The moment I set foot on this land, I knew this was the place,” Michael Keiser said in a media release last year. “The dunes are perfect – tall and rolling, with unlimited possibilities for great golf holes.”

The name Rodeo Dunes pays tribute to the family from which Dream Golf purchased the land. The Cervi family produces rodeo events and has used parts of the land for rodeo training, as well as ranching and livestock.

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