Will Cabela's abandon Woodmar County Club bid in Hammond?

HAMMOND | Cabela's Inc. likely will drop plans to build an outdoors superstore in the city if Woodmar Country Club members vote to reject the giant retailer's $14 million offer to purchase the club, Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said.

The 150-member country club is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to sell the golf course and country club property to Cabela's, which is planning two stores for Indiana as part of an expansion of its retail business.

Proponents of the Cabela's sale say they are facing opposition that could kill the deal, including a seven-page letter recently sent to club members,

"If Cabela's gets voted down, they're gone. They're not coming back," McDermott said. "If this offer gets shot down, we're done." Other sources confirmed Cabela's would withdraw its offer to build in Hammond.

Mike Callahan, senior vice president of retail operations for Cabela's Inc., said he's never dealt with anything like the fracas accompanying his company's bid to buy Woodmar County Club.

"This has really been one of the most drawn-out and complicated negotiations we've ever been a part of," Callahan said. "It is unlike anything we have been involved with before."

Callahan wasn't referring to the political climate in Northwest Indiana. He said local governmental and civic leaders have been receptive and supportive of Cabela's attempts to build in Hammond.

Callahan said it has been the ownership structure of the country club which has complicated sale negotiations, including previous Cabela's purchase offers for $7 million and $11.5 million. The $7 million offer was withdrawn by Cabela's; Woodmar members voted down the $11.5 million offer in April.

Unlike a typical land buy, in which the company can negotiate in relative confidentiality with a single owner or company, Hammond's country club has more than 150 equity-holding owners -- and a variety of publicly stated competing agendas.

Consider the letter recently sent to Woodmar members, which claims earlier offers to purchase Woodmar by an Illinois development firm were never shared with the members.

"(The letter) is going to cause a lot of people to hitch up their horses and say, 'Let's wait,'" said one long-time member who declined to be named because the issue has become so sensitive.

"Pretty much the general consensus around the club is ... if nothing else got in the way, if they put it to a vote on the $14 million from Cabela's, it would pass."

The letter was written by the two principals of the Illinois development firm Dmyterko and Wright. The firm claims in the letter it was asked by a group of unidentified partners connected to the country club to try to buy the club.

In the letter, Dmyterko's principals claim when they discovered their offers were never brought to the club for consideration they began to suspect they had been cut out of the deal, and that the unidentified partners may have been manipulating the sale without the club's knowledge and for their own benefit.

The letter contends the club may be worth double what Cabela's is offering, and suggests the firm might take legal action unless it is allowed to submit a competing offer. The company offers no specific plans for development of the property and provided no documentation of its alleged offers.

Region developer Jerome Kulik is identified in the letter as a go-between for the group. He acknowledged he previously attempted to take part in a bid to buy the club, but said there was nothing improper about his activities.

"From July 2003 to October 2004, I was involved in discussions and negotiations concerning a transfer of ownership of Woodmar Country Club," Kulik said Thursday. "I have not been involved directly or indirectly with any person or entity attempting to purchase any interest ... since October of 2004."

Long-time club member and former board president Kenneth Reed dismissed the letter entirely, saying it bordered on extortion and was intended to confuse the club's members.

"It's kind of a threat," Reed said. "Most people I know are negatively affected by threats. It's not the way to do business."

Thomas McDermott Sr., former Hammond mayor and father of the current mayor, said the negotiations between Cabela's and the 150-member club became so complicated he's pulled out.

McDermott Sr., also former CEO of The Northwest Indiana Forum, helped attract Cabela's interest in Hammond. He worked briefly as a paid consultant to Cabela's to find locations for two stores in Indiana, one in the northwest and another in the southern half of the state. He said Hammond will miss a rare opportunity to create jobs and stimulate economic growth if Cabela's drops its bid to build in the city.

The initial offer he ferried between Cabela's and Woodmar last year was around $7 million. He said he advised Cabela's to increase the bid to $9.1 million. Then it was $11 million. Then $12 million.

When it finally hit the latest offer of $14 million, McDermott Sr. said he pulled out of the back-and-forth on the price bidding.

"I haven't been involved with the price since it was $12 million," McDermott Sr. said. "I'm really worried. If we screw it up, and I mean Northwest Indiana, and this thing doesn't happen, we'll all be the losers."

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