The Seattle-based REIT – the single largest owner of land in the U.S. – sold the timberland to a real estate holding company owned by Benjy Griffith, who last appeared on the Land Report 100 in 2013. The $145 million cash transaction, announced in December 2019 and completed on March 26, translates to around $230 per acre. The sale included a 110,000-acre conservation easement intended to preserve public access along both the Fisher and Thompson Rivers, an expressed priority for SPP. Local sportsmen and conservationists had voiced concerns that the adjacent public lands would be inaccessible because they were landlocked by private property. Such was the case when the Wilks Brothers (No. 12 on the 2019 Land Report 100) acquired 172,000 acres of Idaho forestland that formally belong to Weyerhaeuser in 2016 and closed off access to hunters, fishers, and hikers.

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