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Toll Brothers' Crow's Nest option to expire; landowner's attorney says other builders putting offers on table Date published: 7/22/2004 By RUSTY DENNEN Other builders interested in Stafford peninsula
It appears that Toll Brothers Inc., the nation's largest luxury-home builder, won't develop Crow's Nest after all. The Pennsylvania-based firm has an agreement to purchase the 3,800-acre tract in eastern Stafford County. But Clark Leming, attorney for the landowner, K&M Properties of McLean, says that option will soon expire. Leming declined to say yesterday what shelved the deal. "What I can tell you is that it appears the contractwill not proceed. I can also say that K&M is in the process of considering other offers." A Toll Brothers spokeswoman in Northern Virginia was unavailable yesterday for comment. Toll Brothers has one Fredericksburg-area development under way: Chancellorsville Hunt off Spotswood Furnace Road in Spotsylvania County. Leming declined to say how much K&M is now asking for Crow's Nest, but sources familiar with the discussions said that it is approximately $50 million. That's significantly more than the $30 million K&M was asking last fall in negotiations with the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation to purchase the land as a state natural area. When those negotiations fell through, K&M put the property back on the market and Toll Brothers signed an option this spring. Leming said K&M has a responsibility to its investors to get the best price for the land. The company paid $17.8 million for it in 1989. "In today's dollars, it's [worth] a lot more than that," he said. Leming said K&M has two goals: to make a profit, "and hopefully to preserve part of the land." He said the other prospective buyers, whom he identified only as "national builders," all want to develop the waterfront tract. Crow's Nest has become a rallying cry for preservationists who want to see the land between Potomac and Accokeek creeks stay undeveloped. The property includes dense virgin forest, some rare plants and animals, Civil War-era sites and a Daniel family cemetery. The land is named after The Crow, a black, three-masted schooner moored off the shoreline during the 1800s. David Croteau, a member of Save Crow's Nest, said yesterday that Toll Brothers' exit won't change anything, and might present an opportunity.
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