![]() ![]() In the four decades since its founding, the Land Trust has grown to include agricultural land of all types, Bleiberg said. When we’re talking about a 15-acre piece of ground, I get to pay closer to $500,000 instead of $1 million.” “If the numbers don’t work, there is no farm and the conserved ground tends to be about half the price. “We’re a small business first,” Sanders said. On the business side, Sanders said the conservation easements can help new farmers with their debt load by selling the easements and can make orchard land more affordable to invest in to grow his business. It’s the heart and soul of what Palisade is.” ![]() We’re starting to become a tourist community and less of an ag community and one of the things that’s going to happen there is development, but it’s agriculture that’s bringing the tourism. “I think, as growers, we can all sense it. “I think we’re on the precipice of a big change in Palisade right now,” Sanders said. “Perhaps most importantly, the vision and desire of farmers who recognized that, yes, they could sell out their rural estate to have their vineyard estate subdivision, but they are committed to producing food.”įor James Sanders, owner of the Palisade Peach Shack and 55 acres of conserved peach orchards, partnering with the land trust is both important for his business and for the future of the area’s growing agro-tourism. “It would not be what it is today without the vision of folks like Harry Talbott and the hard work of the Land Trust and the generous support of so many of our friends and partners and donors,” Bleiberg said. Eventually, in the mid-2000s, the Land Trust launched the Fruitland Forever campaign to preserve enough land for the fruit industry and the wine industry to have a secure future. He said it took time to convince land owners that this was in their interest. The oil shale boom was fueling land development in 1980, Talbott said, and they were looking for legal means to preserve the fruit industry. “We didn’t get very many acres in it for a while, but we did a volunteer board. “We formed the land conservancy kind of out of desperation in a way to save the land,” Talbott said. It was founded in 1980 as Mesa Land Trust by fruit growers in Palisade looking for ways to protect agricultural land from development, Talbott Farms founder and one of the Land Trust founders Harry Talbott said. That landscape, as well as ranch land in Fruita and Glade Park, trails in Grand Junction and natural habitat across the Western Slope, may not exist today if not for the work of the Colorado West Land Trust. “For me, protecting that landscape really protects our sense of place and home,” Bleiberg said. One of the first vineyards you see as you come out of De Beque Canyon and drive toward Grand Junction is conserved by the Colorado West Land Trust, which has easements protecting around 900 acres of orchard and vineyard land in Palisade alone, Executive Director Rob Bleiberg said. It’s a familiar sight to residents and a taste of what this area has to offer to visitors. ![]() Someday it’s going to be considered a transformative development.Photo by CHRISTOPHER TOMLINSON/The Daily SentinelĪrticle by DAN WEST Daily Sentinel, December 30, 2020–Coming into the Grand Valley from the east, your first view is of acres and acres of orchards and vineyards spreading out to the west. We’re just glad the pandemic didn’t sideline this project. ![]() Nobody knows how long the COVID-19 interruption is going to last, but the city and potential investors, thankfully, are not letting it hijack all considerations of the future. Redevelopment seems like an odd thing for the city of Grand Junction to be contemplating at a time when so much is uncertain. At the same time, there’s enough space and diversity of uses along the corridor for existing businesses to continue to thrive. Get Air, Atlasta Solar, Crossfit Jukejoint, Wet Dreams River Supply, Taqueria Guadalajara and the Sentinel, among others, reflect the potential for business diversity in the corridor, but residential foot traffic between downtown and Las Colonias is the surest commercial incubator. Adelstein said part of the goal of the development is to enhance the entire area.Īs a long-time property owner on South Seventh, The Daily Sentinel has more than a passing interest in seeing the area blossom into something more. “So for this market after doing a lot of real estate research and analysis on the area we came to understand that apartments, rental units, are in super high demand.”įilling an in-demand niche is just good business sense, but S2E is the right developer at the right time for seeing a bigger picture. “We really focus on bringing attainable green options to the markets we develop in,” Adelstein said. ![]()
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