Courtesy of Carl Streiff
Audio By Carbonatix
For two years, the fate of the beloved Tempe community Shalimar Golf Club has hung in the balance as residents battled a developer’s plan to transform it into housing. But this week, after the developer rescinded the development plan it had filed with the city, the self-named Save Shalimar group is celebrating a victory.
However, that win may be short-lived.
“That going away is a big win,” said Save Shalimar president Carl Streiff about the scuttled development plan. “What the future is going to be, we need to see what their plan is.”
In 2024, BB Living announced a deal to buy the course from its aging owners, Dick and Jane Neuheisel, with plans to turn it into a high-density housing development. That would have required the city of Tempe to rezone the property to allow more housing, which a coalition of residents popped up to fight.
The nine-hole course, located near State Route 101 and East Southern Avenue, has been a staple of the community for decades. It closed in April 2025. Streiff said the golf course is integral to the neighborhood, which is filled with unique homes built in the 1960s and ‘70s and is more walkable than most in the Valley.
“It’s part of the fabric that makes up Tempe,” Streiff said of the golf course, noting that people from all over the world signed a petition opposing the rezoning. “A lot of people have very, very fond memories of Shalimar, and would like to see it remain. But that’s going to be entirely up to the owners and what they may be willing to do.”
The owner is likely to remain BB Living — the company is currently in escrow to buy the property and still plans to redevelop it. But it may redevelop it differently after community pushback.
Along with Cachet Homes, BB Living planned to build 240 housing units on the 40-acre property, but it yanked back that proposal on Tuesday. The company will present a new plan soon that works within the confines of the property’s current zoning, BB Living president Branden Lombardi told The Arizona Republic. Whether Cachet Homes will still be involved was unclear.
The withdrawal of the plans was a huge coup for the Save Shalimar campaign, Streiff said. Stopping the rezoning was its main goal and it succeeded. But that doesn’t mean the campaign is over.
Streiff said that Save Shalimar’s ideal situation is for the property to remain a golf course, ideally while figuring out a way to raise the value for Jane Neuheisel, Shalimar’s aging owner. (Dick Neuheisel died in March 2025.) The next-best option is for a new development to have only one housing unit per acre, as the current zoning designation allows.
If the new proposal sticks to the current zoning, Save Shalimar will not fight it, Streiff said. But he’s worried that the next plan might not be what they are hoping for.
Streiff said members of the group attended a meeting with Lombardi on Tuesday, at which he offered them two options: the now-rescinded plan, or a plan that stays within the current zoning that also takes advantage of Arizona’s new accessory dwelling unit laws. Enacted in 2024, the ADU laws require cities to allow residential properties of one acre or more to have up to three accessory dwelling units.
“That’s not anybody’s idea of a good outcome,” Streiff said. “Is that technically within the law? Maybe. Probably. I don’t know. But I think that’s something that will get challenged.”
Neither BB Living nor its attorney, Michelle Santoro of Gamage & Burnham PLC, responded to a request for comment from Phoenix New Times. Neuheisel, who bought Shalimar in 1982 with her late husband, agreed to speak with New Times in the future but declined to speak for this story.
The fight over the future of the golf course has been a trying one for Neuheisel. In a February 2025 opinion piece in the Fountain Hill Times, she chronicled her and her husband’s ownership of the golf course and current frustrations with the opposition to the sale and redevelopment. Ironically, they originally bought the golf course to save it from redevelopment. They lost the property during the 1990s recession but eventually repurchased it. For years, they scrambled to keep it running, Neuheisel wrote, using their personal retirement funds and cashing out their life insurance.
They’ve tried to sell it for a decade but received offers only for residential developments and not for the course, she told the Tempe Tribune. Finally, in 2024, they announced the deal with BB Living and said that they would be closing the course, sparking the ongoing battle with neighbors who opposed their plan. In her op-ed, Neuheisel accused residents of not using and supporting the golf course while it was open, and of fighting a redevelopment plan that she wrote would provide more housing and is in the best interests of Tempe.
Neuheisel shuttered the golf course at the end of April 2025, shutting off the water and electricity. The grass and trees quickly began to dry up, forgotten fish died in the pond and the neighborhood outcry increased. Her husband had died a month earlier, she told the Tempe Tribune, which is why she forgot about the fish. Meanwhile, BB Living submitted its now-dead proposal.
Streiff said that he wished the developers had given in sooner. The property might have fallen into less disrepair.
“We had to watch rotting fish, we had to watch water turtles looking for water,” he said.
For now, the Save Shalimar campaign will wait and see what happens, he said. And in the meantime, residents will take a moment to celebrate.
“There was no guarantee that this was going to be the outcome,” Streiff said, “and you know it certainly feels good to have stopped this.”
