by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Susan Grandin, director of the Jacksonville office for The Trust for Public Land, has a somewhat dangerous job.
When her organization identifies a piece of land to buy, she is the one who heads out dressed in casual clothes to crawl over barbed wire fences, get chased by cows and bulls and hang out of a helicopter to get aerial photographs.
But, she loves what she does.
Land in Jacksonville is a hot commodity and if you know someone who is selling land, you may want to talk with Grandin.
“We buy land from individuals or corporations and then convey it over to local, state or federal government for parks and recreational use,” said Grandin, who spoke at the Commercial Real Estate Women of Jacksonville’s luncheon last month at the Omni Hotel.
The Trust for Public Land is non-profit national conservation organization that helps municipalities buy land to preserve for public use. As head of the Trust’s Jacksonville office, Grandin has helped facilitate the purchase of thousands of acres of undeveloped land in Northeast Florida since she started there about four years ago.
“I bet everyone in here would love to have my job,” joked Grandin. “I buy millions of dollars worth of property and sell it to governmental agencies for parks and recreation and I do it with other people’s money.”
The organization was started in 1972 in San Francisco and now has offices all over the United States.
Grandin said her organization is different from typical environmental organizations because they try and encourage smart growth.
“We try to improve the quality of life while still providing for the growth that is necessary to keep the economy going,” she said.
Grandin’s main focus is to create funding for parks and land conservation, evaluate and purchase land for parks and conservation and help people realize the value of parks and open space.
“America is park poor and that is a quality of life issue,” she said. “We have over 1.57 millions of acres of land protected.”
Grandin reported that TPL worked with the city to acquire land for Mayor John Delaney’s Preservation Project from 1999 until 2003. During that time, TPL closed 23 projects ranging in size from a 1500-acre tract at Cedar Swamp to a two-acre fish camp in the Timucuan Preserve.
A few of the TPL’s projects are the historic preservation of the Governor Broward House, Castaway Island Preserve, Ribault River, Woodside Lane, Camp Milton, Cedar Swamp, Reddie Point, Helow, Palms Fish Camp, Nathan Hale, Vault-San Jose and San Jose Oaks and Thomas Creek Fish Camp.
The Trust for Public Land is not a real estate broker, she added.
“We are principals in transactions, actually buying the land, then conveying it to the appropriate governmental agency, or non-profit, for public park, historic, or open space use,” said Granden. “We have worked very successfully in the past with commercial real estate brokers. We concentrate on raw land, but are not limited to such.
“Sometimes an historic structure is on the property, such as the Governor Broward House we just conveyed to the National Park Service, or sometimes there are structures on the property that are to be razed to create a park, such as the old oceanfront hotels that were a part of Marineland.”
Grandin said many times the landowner is represented by a broker, which can be very helpful, particularly for a landowner that does not deal in real estate that often.
“Brokers that we have worked with in the past tend to bring us deals because they know what we are looking for, which could be described as a special historic or natural resource which, if conserved, would improve the quality of life in our community for future generations,” she said. “In other words, we are not particularly interested in wetlands, or similar non-developable lands.
“We concentrate on parcels with a value of at least $1 million. We have a small staff, and have found that if we encourage other non-profits and governmental agencies to take on those projects under $1 million, which they are well equipped to handle, then we are free to tackle the complicated transactions.”