"It’s extremely unfortunate," said David Myers, the group's executive director. The Conservancy was ready to sign a purchase agreement for $15 million when the growers offered $20 million and got the property.
The Conservancy is trying to make a deal on another property, but it only has a month to raise $2.3 to finalize it, and the pressure is on.
"We have to close this deal, or else it goes to pot growers. That’s the sad truth," Myers. "We’re trying to make a last run at some of these properties before they’re split up and sold off to pot growers. I see it as the last chance to preserve some of these great spaces."
In between San Francisco and the Emerald Triangle lies Sonoma County, a land of vineyards and organic farms, but also a significant player in the pot industry. Its largest city, Santa Rosa (pop. 157,000) is the last urban outpost of the Bay Area megalopolis on the highway headed north.
It's seeing a pot-related real estate boom, too, with private equity firms, venture capitalists, and experienced industry operators are moving fast to gobble up commercial properties, although the North Bay Business Journal, credits it more to the coming into effect of statewide medical marijuana regulation than to looming legalization.
Marijuana industry buyers looking to grow or produce pot products such as edibles or oils have snapped up 200,000 square feet of industrial and commercial properties in southwest Santa Rosa recently. The light industrial vacancy rate is down to 3% and competition is getting tough, growers' advocates and real estate agents told the Journal. That's because the county's location makes it great potential hub for the industry.
"The scale of it is phenomenal," veteran Santa Rosa marijuana attorney Joe Rogoway told the industry newsletter. "It’s more dynamic climate than it ever has been. Cities and counties are working to permit these activities the quickest. Just for Santa Rosa, we’re seeing people who have always been here formalizing what they’re doing. By regulating what’s happening, then they can collect taxes."
"Sonoma County is set up to be the biggest player in producing the raw product in Northern California," said Tawny Logan, executive director of Sonoma County Growers Alliance.
Meanwhile, an hour's drive to the south, the big cities on the bay are already well into the bubble. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported last month, in Oakland, "bubble prices are already baked into the real estate values inside the city's waterfront industrial zone," where the city's first licensed marijuana grows are set for this year or next.
And in San Francisco, already one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, one Financial District landlord is reportedly charging $1 million in application fees just to lease a small, licensed medical marijuana delivery "co-working space" for $15,000 a month.
The new gold rush is on.
The Conservancy is trying to make a deal on another property, but it only has a month to raise $2.3 to finalize it, and the pressure is on.
"We have to close this deal, or else it goes to pot growers. That’s the sad truth," Myers. "We’re trying to make a last run at some of these properties before they’re split up and sold off to pot growers. I see it as the last chance to preserve some of these great spaces."
In between San Francisco and the Emerald Triangle lies Sonoma County, a land of vineyards and organic farms, but also a significant player in the pot industry. Its largest city, Santa Rosa (pop. 157,000) is the last urban outpost of the Bay Area megalopolis on the highway headed north.
It's seeing a pot-related real estate boom, too, with private equity firms, venture capitalists, and experienced industry operators are moving fast to gobble up commercial properties, although the North Bay Business Journal, credits it more to the coming into effect of statewide medical marijuana regulation than to looming legalization.
Marijuana industry buyers looking to grow or produce pot products such as edibles or oils have snapped up 200,000 square feet of industrial and commercial properties in southwest Santa Rosa recently. The light industrial vacancy rate is down to 3% and competition is getting tough, growers' advocates and real estate agents told the Journal. That's because the county's location makes it great potential hub for the industry.
"The scale of it is phenomenal," veteran Santa Rosa marijuana attorney Joe Rogoway told the industry newsletter. "It’s more dynamic climate than it ever has been. Cities and counties are working to permit these activities the quickest. Just for Santa Rosa, we’re seeing people who have always been here formalizing what they’re doing. By regulating what’s happening, then they can collect taxes."
"Sonoma County is set up to be the biggest player in producing the raw product in Northern California," said Tawny Logan, executive director of Sonoma County Growers Alliance.
Meanwhile, an hour's drive to the south, the big cities on the bay are already well into the bubble. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported last month, in Oakland, "bubble prices are already baked into the real estate values inside the city's waterfront industrial zone," where the city's first licensed marijuana grows are set for this year or next.
And in San Francisco, already one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, one Financial District landlord is reportedly charging $1 million in application fees just to lease a small, licensed medical marijuana delivery "co-working space" for $15,000 a month.
The new gold rush is on.
