Large golf resort community under construction near Corpus Christi

PORT ARANSAS, Texas -- Construction has begun on Newport Beach and Golf, an 1,800-acre resort community on Mustang Island near Corpus Christi, officials have announced.

KemperSports has been hired to oversee the development and operations of the Newport Golf Club, which will be the community's centerpiece. The first phase of construction will include an 18-hole Arnold Palmer Signature Golf Course, and a second course will be added in future phases.

Upon completion, the resort community also will include residential villages, hotels, a marina, tennis and beach clubs to Mustang Island, on the south end of Port Aransas. The project, created by Craig Millard and Charles Castor of Texas Gulf & Harbor Ltd., is scheduled to open in 2008.

"We have engaged nationally acclaimed companies to help us successfully steer this development, and KemperSports certainly falls into that category when it comes to golf development and management," said Millard. "Together, we plan to make Newport a golfing community through a distinctive course design that preserves the island's identity and bolsters its allure."

Newport Golf Club is the second in Texas taken on recently by KemperSports. The company, the development consultant of Butterfield Trail Golf Course, will assume management of facility operations when that course in El Paso opens later this year.

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