What’s The Best Thing About a Real Estate Recession?

While Kent enjoys dining beneath Frank Gehry-designed buildings in Dusseldorf, I am enjoying time at our comfy home in Holyoke. Here I got a chance to stay up a bit late reading a story in the WSJ about how the real estate drop is helping out conservation causes. It’s the green lining of the sour real estate sector.

It turns out that many large developments that have been bitterly opposed by preservation groups are now becoming massive conservation schemes, since funding from banks is drying up. The photo in the paper showed an aerial shot of a gorgeous green and blue arc, the coast of Oahu’s north shore, that was once the place where a massive resort was to be built.

It’s nearly all green and undeveloped, and by God, now it will stay that way, since Oaktree Capital Management has thrown in the towel on their plan to build a mega-resort with five new hotels and condos. It was bitterly opposed by Hawaiians for years, and, after they missed a $687,000 payment, they’ve taken up the governor’s offer to preserve the land. That’s what I call progress!

It’s also happening in Oregon, and Groton, MA, and in many other states. In Oregon, a 27-acre parcel was added to an existing park for a 20% lower price. And in Massachusetts a developer abandoned plans to develop a 360-acre farm, and the town will now keep the land as open space.

Stephan Neveleff, who had planned to build on an oceanfront parcel in New Smyrna, FL in 2005 was happy to get in touch with the Trust for Public Land. His plan to build 23 condos was scuttled and now the land will become a park at a loss of between $300 and $400,00. “It’s just time to move on to something else,” he said