In December, C-VILLE reported that Greenbrier Resort owner Jim Justice had purchased the 4,500-acre Faulconer Tract. The property, which sold for $23.75 million, includes land once owned by former President James Monroe and may be seen from Monticello.
Now, while Justice says the day-to-day of running a luxury resort has prevented him from planning the future for the 4,500-acre plot, he tells West Virginia’s Stamford Advocate that "there will be a conservation component in whatever I do." Rex Linville, a land conservation officer for the Piedmont Environmental Council, responds to the Advocate that the local PEC office is ready and willing to help.
C-VILLE first wrote about the tract last year around the time it broke the news that Forest Lodge LLC, owners of Biscuit Run, had requested $31.2 million in land preservation tax credits for the 1,200-acre former development site it sold to the state. The Nature Conservancy hired Nelson Byrd Woltz landscape architects to draft a conceptual proposal for "Jefferson Monroe Park" on the Faulconer Tract but, as Will Goldsmith reported, failed to entice the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Read the story here.
