High-profile Glatfelter property has unknown buyer
By David Dagan
1/24/2008

York-based specialty paper maker P.H. Glatfelter Co. has an agreement to sell more than 2,500 acres of forest in Adams County, but the buyer has not been disclosed.

The company marketing the land has labeled the property as being “under agreement” on its Web site. Glatfelter Vice President William T. Yanavitch today confirmed there was an agreement, but said he could not disclose details until the deal closes. The asking price posted on the Web site was $12.6 million.

Conservationists in Adams County have been anxiously following the sale. The land is adjacent to Michaux State Forest, said Sidney Kuhn, land conservation coordinator for the Land Conservancy of Adams County.

“This is the single largest parcel of land that’s still privately owned in Adams County,” she said.

Kuhn’s group has been exploring whether it could help preserve the property, but she said she was unaware of the agreement.

Glatfelter recently transferred other midstate lands to public ownership in a transaction managed through The Conservation Fund, a Virginia-based land-preservation group. The fund was looking at the Adams County land, the group’s Pennsylvania representative, Todd McNew, said yesterday. He declined to comment today on the news of an agreement.