Developers who once had plans for golf courses, shopping malls and other large developments in rural regions of the tri-state area, but fell victim to the recession, are offering the vacant development sites to non-profit land trusts at discounts of up to 90 percent, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Trusts such as the Scenic Hudson Land Trust and the Open Space Institute said they’ve been receiving a multitude of calls from the developers recently, offering to sell them land in upstate New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.
“We used to call people, and now people are calling us. We’re being offered more and more properties,” said Kim Elliman, CEO of the Open Space Institute.
Scenic Hudson Land Trust recently bought one of the properties offered to them – a 185-acre parcel across from the Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Dutchess County – for just $2 million (note: correction appended). That’s an $8 million discount from the pricetag developer Jacob Frydman, CEO of United Realty Partners, put on the land during the real estate boom. [WSJ]