The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20190416231806/https://www.nj.com/news/2019/04/lakewood-yeshiva-looks-to-use-old-golf-course-for-new-campus.html

Lakewood yeshiva looks to use old golf course for new campus

Students at Beth Medrash Govoha, a yeshiva in Lakewood. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Students at Beth Medrash Govoha, a yeshiva in Lakewood. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

A prominent yeshiva in Lakewood may buy a defunct golf course in town for a new campus.

According to a statement from the president of the Beth Medrash Gohova yeshiva, the rapidly-growing institution of Talmudic studies is looking to create a new campus in the township’s northeast corner, apart from its main cluster of dormitories and classroom buildings on Lakewood’s busy downtown.

"Beth Medrash Govoha is exploring the possibility of developing a campus at the Woodlake Country Club that could help accommodate future growth without drawing additional commuters up and down the Route 9 corridor that runs through the heart of Lakewood,” Rabbi Aaron Kotler, the yeshiva’s president, said in a statement.

Referring to the school by its initials, Kotler added, “BMG is in the exploratory feasibility stage of this, and is assessing such, and will know within a few months if it makes sense to pursue.”

A so-called notice of settlement was filed with the Ocean County Clerk’s office on March 26 by the owner of the golf course property, Woodlake Golf, LLC, a subsidiary of the Matrix Development Group based in Monroe, naming BMG as the party that had agreed to buy the property for an undisclosed price.

The rabbi’s statement did not say when the new campus might be built. Matrix principal Donald Epstein did return calls on Tuesday.

With a total of about 6,700 graduate and undergraduate students, Beth Medrash Gohova is said to be the world’s largest Jewish-affiliated university outside of Israel. BMG, founded in 1943 by Kotler’s grandfather, has anchored Lakewood’s rapidly growing Orthodox population.

While that growth has triggered a residential and commercial development boom, providing construction jobs and other economic activity, it has also strained the local finances and led to tensions among some of the area’s more established residents.

Lakewood Mayor Ray Coles welcomed word of the golf course’s sale. Coles said it made sense for BMG to expand in a less densely developed area of the 25-square-mile township, whose population of over 100,000 has more than doubled since the 1990 Census, mostly within the Orthodox community.

“I think it’s a good fit,” Coles said.

Some disagree.

Despite Kotler’s assertion that a new campus would not draw additional commuters on busy Route 9, New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel said the impervious surface, traffic, sewage and other ills that would result from replacing overgrown fairways with buildings, parking lots, roads and people would further jeopardize the Pinelands region and pollute Barnagat Bay.

“Unfortunately,” Tittel said, “Lakewood’s turning into a city, and it’s still an environmentally sensitive area.”

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.