Golf Plan for College Is Par for Course for Developer
When Eddie Milligan takes stock of his kingdom, zooming over the dirt roads of the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center in a golf cart, he can hardly contain himself.
“Isn’t that the most beautiful horse place you’ve ever seen?” he exclaimed, gazing out over the neat rows of stables and the lush tree-lined paths landscaped by his wife.
For Milligan, a 68-year-old father of six who lives on the Lake View Terrace property with his wife and a grown daughter, the equestrian center he has operated for 10 years is a proud testament to his vision and ability to see dreams through. Built on land leased to him by the city, it is the fifth equestrian center he has designed and constructed in Southern California.
In an office decorated with bronze sculptures of horses, and a 154-pound marlin he caught in Mexico, Milligan pulls out photographs of the decrepit stable that occupied the land before he took over. The former jockey and used-car salesman jabs a picture with his finger, seething over the unkempt animals standing in puddles of muck. “Look at that,” he said. “They’re standing in horse urine!”
Milligan’s latest vision involves about 200 acres at Pierce College, where enrollment has dropped sharply over the past decade. Facing persistent budget deficits, the Woodland Hills campus’ governing council voted Tuesday to lease most of its agricultural land to Milligan and his development partners to build an 18-hole golf course.
To sweeten the deal, Milligan also proposed new agricultural facilities. He promises that the project will yield at least $1 million annually for Pierce, but declined to say how much profit he and his partners would see. The plan requires the approval of the Los Angeles Community College District trustees, who have yet to vote on the project.
Those familiar with Milligan’s work acknowledge that the outspoken developer can be brash, even abrasive. But several observers point to the rehabilitation of the Hansen Dam site as impressive proof that the feisty Irishman is more than just talk.
“He’s got a fast mouth and he’s always talking big,” said Phyllis Hines, land-use chairwoman of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn. “But by golly, the guy comes through.”
“I would describe him as an old-fashioned American entrepreneur,” said State Sen. Richard Alarcon, chuckling softly at the thought of the man he calls “small in stature but bigger than life.”
“He’s a very earnest and caring business operator who wanted to do good things for the northeast San Fernando Valley, and in the end, it proved to be true,” said Alarcon, who represented Lake View Terrace as a city councilman before moving to the Senate last year. “He reminds me a lot of the people in the San Fernando Valley I knew when I was growing up--kind of tough, up-by-the-bootstraps folks who struggle through tough times and become a success by overcoming challenges.”
Others take a dimmer view of Milligan and his plans. Leland Shapiro, the director of Pierce’s pre-veterinary program and an opponent of the proposed golf course, said Milligan seemed arrogant in meetings with the school’s agricultural department. The developer bragged about winning a large settlement in a lawsuit against the city, Shapiro said, and brushed off the concerns of some faculty members that his plan did not provide enough pastureland.
“We strongly disagreed with him and he laughed at us,” Shapiro said. “ . . . He wants to make money. He doesn’t care about the students at all.”
Born in Philadelphia, Milligan made his way to California at 14, traveling across the country with his father, a horse trader, in a railroad car filled with horses. He grew up in Arcadia, dropping out of high school to become a jockey and, later, a thoroughbred trainer. In 1970, Milligan founded a construction company that specialized in horse stables and equestrian centers.
In the course of building a barn for a Del Mar racetrack, Milligan met Kjell Qvale, a San Francisco thoroughbred breeder who served on the boards of various tracks. Milligan and Qvale are now partners in the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center. For the Pierce venture, the pair teamed up with professional golfer Jim Colbert, an experienced golf course developer who has built several projects with Qvale.
Though he fondly remembers the long-gone horse stables that preceded Arcadia’s shopping centers, Milligan has no patience for preservationists resisting his plan to transform one of the Valley’s last large open spaces into a moneymaking golf course.
“Any development I’ve done, I’ve taken a raw piece of land that was nonproductive and turned it into a project that others can enjoy,” he said. He dismisses any suggestion that California’s open space is vanishing, saying, “Get on any one of our freeways for 30 minutes and I guarantee you, you’ll say, ‘You know what? We’ve got a lot of space.’ We developers are creators, and the masses appreciate what we create.”
In recent years, Milligan made news with a long-running dispute with the city over his lease agreement for the Hansen Dam center. He sued the city in 1996, claiming that the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission reneged on its agreement to give him a 30-year lease.
In October, the city approved a $1.35-million settlement for Milligan, who has also secured his long-term rights to operate the facility. Last month, the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley named the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center the Valley’s outstanding small business of the year.
“He may be forceful, but everything I’ve heard come from him is very truthful,” said LeRoy Chase, a member of the Recreation and Parks Commission who went head to head with Milligan over the disputed lease. “He backs up his words with actions, and he’s been an asset to the northeast San Fernando Valley.”