Mountain Valley closure displaces 111 workers, WARN notice says

BARNESVILLE – The final day for a beloved events venue in northern Schuylkill County has been set.

The state-required Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) Notice went out this week for the Mountain Valley Golf Course in Ryan Township.

According to the notice, 111 employees will be out of work effective Oct. 31 due to the course’s closure.

The course was sold in April for $15 Million to PNK Group, an industrial developer based in New York City. The sale came a month after township supervisors approved a zoning change which representatives for Mountain Valley and sister-company Yudacot LP testified was just “to enable us to be prepared for the future.”

At a Feb. 9 hearing, Alvin Marshall, an attorney representing the firms, testified that the change was to “unify the entire golf course to make it ready if in fact a project comes along. That’s all.”

Meanwhile, deed documents indicated the sale was already in the works for well over a month at that point. The deed references a title survey plan prepared on Jan. 9 and revised on Jan. 27 with PNK references in the title.

The golf course’s closure displaces numerous recurring events as well as local golf teams, including Mahanoy Area, which hosts co-op golfers from Shenandoah Valley.

At several meetings following the sale, Ryan Township Supervisors Chairman Clyde ‘Champ’ Holman has said PNK plans to build warehouses, not data centers, on the property. It is adjacent to the developing Mahanoy Business park where PNK is currently building a warehouse on the old Bendinsky Airport runway.

The article Mountain Valley closure displaces 111 workers, WARN notice says first appeared on The Shenandoah Sentinel.