[at-l] Maine land prices

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Bob C. wrote:
>A  few weeks ago several questioned my contention that Maine wild lands 
>could be purchased for $300 an acre.

Naaah - the point of contention was that it was claimed that the roughly 
1500 acre Saddleback tract should have been sold to NPS for the $200 per 
that they originally offered.  Your own later statement that the $300 per 
acre would only apply to multi-thousand acre tracts indicated that you might 
understand the fallacy in that proposition.  Was I wrong?

So, at least in this case, it's $330 per acre for a 54000 acre tract.  On an 
inverse scale how much does that make the 1500 acres at Saddleback worth 
(per acre)?  Well, directly from the article -

>Malone bought his first big forestland parcel from Plum Creek Timber, 
>paying $10.5 million for 7,500 acres, or $1,333 an acre,
<snip>
>Four years earlier, he had purchased another 7,400 acres around the 
>southern end of the lake from International Paper for nearly $3.5 million, 
>about $456 an acre. Those prices were considerably more than the $200 to 
>$500 an acre that commercial forestland has generally sold >for in recent 
>years.

Hmmm - seems nobody actually knows what the land is worth - so it's worth 
what ever the buyer is willing to pay for it then, isn't it?


>Open http://www.meepi.org/files02/pa052202.htm and you will read about a 
>guy who has  just  bought  54,000 acres abutting the Appalachian Trail for 
>$330 an acre. It's  one  of  the  parcels  that our new Maine Appalachian 
>Trail Land Trust had discussed.  Unfortunately,  we were just getting 
>underway and such a transaction was wildly premature.

I'm not real familiar with the area, but I'm curious - since this tract is 
apparently along the Maine - Quebec border, what does it have to do with the 
Appalachian Trail?  How much of the Trail would actually have been protected 
if the Land Trust had acquired it?  The only mention of the AT in the 
article is in connection with another tract -

>LandVest is selling the Katahdin Forest of 32,181 acres (54 square miles) 
>in central Maine for $11 million.. Asked if Malone was interested in that 
>parcel, Henry Whittemore declined to comment. The Appalachian Mountain Club 
>is known to be interested in the property because the Appalachian Trail 
>runs along its border,

My problem, Bob, is in the numbers and location.  54,000 acres would protect 
a one mile wide corridor for 84 miles of the Trail - or 42 miles of a 2 mile 
wide corridor - if it was the "right" 54,000 acres.  Fact is that with the 
right negotiator, the land owners (new or old) should be happy to sell off a 
mile wide strip of land to NPS (or anyone else) who'd nail that land down 
for a National Scenic Trail.  The value of land that backs onto State or 
National forests or parks is usually greatly enhanced.  There is, of course, 
a fly in that ointment, isn't there?

But - who's negotiating with landowners for that one or two mile corridor?  
Why not?  Is the purpose to protect the "Trail" - or vast tracts of 
"wilderness" under the guise of "Trail protection"?

Now I'll tell you why I asked the questions - I'd be willing to give money 
to an entity that was actually gonna protect the Trail.  But I'm not willing 
to give money to an outfit that says they're gonna protect the Trail and 
then goes off to protect something else - to the detriment of the Trail.  So 
- inquiring minds want to know.

Have a good weekend - we're going hiking.

Walk softly,
Jim

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