Massive Sale of Forest Lands Leaves Some Municipalities & School Districts With Surprise Funds

| March 21, 2022

FRANKLIN, Pa. (EYT) – Some area municipalities and school districts may have thought they were receiving early Christmas gifts thanks to a recent real estate sale.

The Forest Investment Associates (FIA) recently purchased a reported 17,795 acres for $63,229,957.00 in Venango County from Chagrin Land LLC Timberlands.

“It seemed to surprise everybody,” Venango County Register and Recorder Sue R. Hannon on Monday told exploreVenango.com.

“I had calls from some of the school districts, and they got a lot of money from my office asking if that was right.”

It was right, thanks to a one percent real estate transfer tax and split between school districts and municipalities.

Hannon confirmed that President Township received the largest amount of the municipalities at $195,607.00. Cranberry Township was second among municipalities, receiving $41,239.00; followed by Sugarcreek Borough, $35,924.00; Cornplanter Township, $22,249.00; Pinegrove Township, $20,477.00; Oil Creek Township, $9,776.00; Rockland Township, $6,755.00; and Cherrytree Township, $1,321.00.

Forest Area School District received the second-highest payment in the amount of $139,548.00; followed by Cranberry Area School District, $68,472.00; Oil City School District, $37,351.00; Valley Grove School District, $35,924.00; and Titusville Area School District, $17,651.00.

The Venango County land purchase is believed to be part of a much larger deal between FIA and Chagrin involving tracts in other counties and states.

The FIA website at https://www.forestinvest.com/ describes the company as a steward of sustainable forests.

“It means managing forests in a renewable manner to produce goods and services that improve people’s lives, our communities, and the natural environment,” states Marc Walley, President of Forest Investment Associates.

“First and foremost, for the benefit of our clients, who entrust us to advise them and generate a financial return coupled with environmental and societal benefits that help them achieve their investment objectives. These economic, environmental, and societal benefits are not mutually exclusive. Our stewardship ethic challenges us to strike a responsible balance of generating tangible forest values today to protect and enhance forest values for tomorrow.”

FIA is celebrating its 35th anniversary, and Walley describes how the business has changed.

“It is much more sophisticated on both the investment management and forest science end of things. Understanding of return dynamics, valuation techniques, economic and supply-demand factors, global wood flows, the use of data and technology, advances in forest productivity, site-specific management prescriptions, and forest operations have all changed significantly.”


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