Ada Township, Michigan, Approves First Phase of Ada Golf Club
Ada Township’s Planning Commission approved the first phase of Ada Golf Club, a private golf-only course designed by Renaissance Golf Design’s Brian Schneider, on more than 390 acres of former gravel-mining land. The clubhouse needs separate approval in 2027.
Ada Township, Michigan, east of Grand Rapids, has approved the first phase of Ada Golf Club. Continuum Ventures, the family office of Doug and Maria DeVos, is building the private, golf-only 18-hole club on more than 390 acres of largely former gravel-mining land along Pettis Avenue. Crain’s Grand Rapids reported Oct. 23 that the township’s Planning Commission approved the phase, which stood on its Oct. 15 agenda. Brian Schneider of Renaissance Golf Design is the course architect.
The first phase covers initial establishment of the course, a preliminary routing plan, and a maintenance facility at 1100 Pettis Avenue, according to the staff memo in the Oct. 15 Planning Commission packet. The facility includes a main building of about 14,847 square feet for offices and storage, a parking lot of about 44 spaces, and accessory structures, with existing berms along Pettis Avenue screening it from the road. The clubhouse is not part of this approval. Staff conditions call for separate site plan approval and an updated course plan showing final hole locations at that time, and the club plans to submit the clubhouse plan in 2027.
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Six parcels northwest of the intersection of Pettis Avenue NE and Egypt Valley Avenue NE make up the site. A staff memo dated Oct. 7 describes the land as almost entirely open, with a large portion historically used for gravel extraction. The applicant’s narrative calls the course a “productive reuse of the former surface mining site” and says soils must be prepared and given multiple growing seasons before play, which is why the club sought phased approval. Earthwork and brush clearing began in summer 2026. Course work on the southern portion begins in 2027, and the club anticipates opening in late 2028 or 2029.
Renaissance Golf Design is the firm Tom Doak founded, and according to its website it has been led by Schneider, Eric Iverson, Don Placek, and Brian Slawnik since Doak started a separate company at the end of 2020. MLive reported in September that Andrej Buchko of SFT Golf Design is lead design associate. The narrative states, “The resulting course will feel found rather than manufactured,” with broad fairways, open green approaches, and bunkers only where they serve a strategic or visual purpose.
Continuum says the club will emphasize design and local membership, and MLive reported it will have no pool, pickleball or tennis courts, or fitness facilities. In September, Continuum said West Michigan “has a great golf community” and that it is excited to make “another long-term investment here.” Continuum, founded in 2020, also invests in High Pointe Golf Club near Traverse City and Broomsedge Golf Club in South Carolina. That local focus differs from Frontier Club near Ann Arbor, where Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner are routing a $32.19 million private club whose site plans say at least 80 percent of members would come from outside the area. Southern Land Company’s private Tom Fazio club inside Chatham Park in Pittsboro, North Carolina, is another new private club project.
Ada GC, LLC, which does business as Ada Golf Club, bought the core properties from Ada Holdings, LLC on June 24, 2026, according to a letter in the packet from Mike Deming, Continuum’s vice president of investments. The maintenance site came from Ada Township in a land swap, under which the developer also pays the township $25,000 for landscape screening and covers conveyance costs up to $25,000, per the May 14 Township Board packet. The township filings do not include membership terms or a project cost, and Planning Commission minutes from Oct. 15 have not been posted.
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The approval clears the way for a private, golf-only course that its designers say should feel as though it has always belonged on the property, built on land once mined for gravel, with the clubhouse still to come.
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