Ford’s Colony residents are on edge after the upscale community’s golf course recently shut down and a section of the community was taken over by a bank.

BB&T bank recently took over 132 lots it had financed for the developer in the upscale community, which has been struggling in the down economy.

A bond that the city required be posted will guarantee the completion of roads, water and sewer.

C&F Bank, the lender for the golf course, recently took it over. The course likely will reopen in middle to late February after the bank hires a golf management company to run the course, said Drew Mulhare, vice president of Realtec Inc., the managing partner for developer Ford’s Colony LLC.

The community’s sales office is closed, and its phone number has been disconnected.

“The uncertainty of the future of the community and future of our own properties is certainly disconcerting,” homeowner Jim Poole said.

He said he sincerely hopes that the community turns around and doesn’t know whether the bank takeovers of different facets of the project will end up being a positive or negative.

“I realize that the success of Ford’s Colony is vital to my success,” Poole said. “Therefore I do not wish them ill will. I don’t want Ford’s Colony to fail. I want them to succeed.”

Of the 132 lots recently taken over by BB&T, about 30 already are developed, so infrastructure is completed. Mulhare said there are another 32 partially developed lots where roads need to be completed.

And he said there are about 60 to 70 lots that don’t have any infrastructure yet that are platted and unsold.

He said the company had posted bond that was required by the city of Rocky Mount guaranteeing that the infrastructure is completed.

“Quite frankly, the city has the power to call the bond, but the city is giving the developer and the bank an opportunity to talk,” Mulhare said.

He said the bond only covers lots that have been recorded.

Rocky Mount Mayor David Combs, the owner Century 21 The Combs Company, said he empathizes with residents who might be concerned about the latest news at Ford’s Colony.

“I think if I was living in Ford’s Colony, I would also be concerned,” he said. “But I think in the long term, the community will be fine. It’s at a transition stage.”

Combs said he’s not sure whether it will take six months or two years for the transition to occur.

“But before it’s all over with, whether it’s the bank or another developer who wants to take it over, they will still want to see it progress in a positive manner because they have an investment,” Combs said.

The community’s golf course management likely will be taken over by Traditional Golf Properties, a well-known management company based in Virginia, but a deal has not been struck formally yet, Mulhare said.

Traditional Golf Properties manages courses in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina.

The company manages The Golf Club at Chapel Ridge, a new course on 790 acres of rolling countryside in Pittsboro, as well as The Preserve at Jordan Lake Golf Club, a course south of Chapel Hill that was named by Golf Magazine as “One of America’s Top 100 Best Residential Courses.”

Traditional Golf Properties manages Carolina National Golf Club, a Fred Couples signature course located between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Homes in Ford’s Colony sell from $250,000 to $500,000. The 1,400-acre master-planned community is slated to have 1,000 home sites. The community is being developed by the Ford family, who created Ford’s Colony at Williamsburg in 1985.

Development began at the Rocky Mount community in summer 2004.