Owners of Liberty Forge recreation complex in Lower Allen Township unveiled plans Monday for a resort community built around the golf course.

Plans for the Villages of Liberty Forge include 582 condominiums, a 200-bed resort hotel and a 100-bed nursing home with the 18-hole executive length golf course remaining as the centerpiece of the project.

The design, which is very preliminary, also calls for the construction of a bridge across Lisburn Road for pedestrians and golf carts to link the resort site to a new restaurant already approved on the west side of the road, adjacent to the driving range and Yellow Breeches Creek, project engineer Bony Dawood said.

The commissioners took no action Monday on Liberty Forge’s request for changes to the township zoning ordinance to allow the development of age-qualified senior communities, condominium apartments, nursing home, continuing-care retirement communities and rural resorts in an area zoned for single-family homes.

A public hearing on the proposed zoning changes is scheduled for 7 p.m. Aug. 20. A second hearing will follow at a later date should the commissioners agree to draft zoning law changes.

Dawood said the golf course owners always had long-range plans for the 96-acre site near the village of Lisburn. He explained how those plans were accelerated by the loss last winter of the golf course conference center and banquet facilities.

Liberty Forge suspended its operations in December, claiming it cannot operate without violating noise control thresholds set by the state Liquor Control Board.

Vice President Marcia DesForge sent a letter to golf course patrons urging them to make other plans for events they booked in 2007 and 2008. In the letter, DesForge said a verbal threat of “property line patrol” by a LCB enforcement officer put Liberty Forge in a position where it could not expect to operate without violating the noise control rules.

In a phone interview this morning, Dawood said the loss of revenue from the closing of the conference center and banquet facilities pushed the golf course owners to move forward with developing Liberty Forge into what they call “a premier community” like no other in the area, maybe even the region.

Dawood said a number of golf courses in the area are developing into recreational resorts realizing they cannot sustain a viable business model with just a golf course.

Liberty Forge conducted research that found patrons of the “active adult lifestyle” are looking for better options than what the market provides now, Dawood said.

He said the Villages of Liberty Forge would provide for those options in keeping with the desire of the golf course owners to preserve option space.

Plans call for 18 five-story condo buildings following a design developed by world-class architects, Dawood said. He added that each building would include underground parking and a penthouse on the top floor.

To preserve open space, the condo units would be clustered in three-building pods in a 23-acre gated community, while the nursing home would occupy 6.5 acres and the hotel and conference center another 9 acres. As a result, 75 percent of the site would remain open.

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