They did it.
The final $1 million grant the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust needs to top off the cash pot necessary to buy the undeveloped southern tip of Topsail Island has come through.
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Coastal Land Trust Executive Director Harrison Marks said he anticipates closing on the nearly 150-acre tract known as “The Point” by April.
“We’ve raised the amount of private funds that we said we needed to fund that part of the project,” Marks said during an interview Tuesday morning. “We’re waiting to hear on a final grant and hope to hear in the next few days approval of the last million-dollar grant. If that comes through, then it would appear our funding is in place and we would close on The Point.”
A few hours later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent out a press release that it is awarding a $1 million grant to the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, in partnership with the Coastal Land Trust and others, to go toward the land purchase.
Fish and Wildlife’s Tuesday afternoon announcement effectively wraps a vigorous and relatively short fundraising campaign Coastal Land Trust launched last spring after entering into a contract with the land’s owners.
In the months since, the nonprofit has received more than $1.5 million in private donations to go toward buying the land, a feat Marks said “is amazing.”
“Close to 800 people contributed,” he added.
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Marks has declined to reveal the price tag of the land. He said in an interview last year that the organization expected to spend about $8 million on various expenses, surveys and title searches, and the land itself.
Michele Rivest, vice president of the grassroots organization Conserve the Point, said the pending purchase of the land, which will result in its permanent conservation, is “a dream come true.”
“It’s monumental,” she said Wednesday. “It’s the culmination of decades of effort by the community. It just speaks to the lifelong commitment of so many people who revere this very special place on the planet and have wanted to see it conserved, really left undeveloped and wild for all future generations.”
The Point includes salt flats, maritime shrub and estuarine wetlands providing habitat for federally listed species including red knots, piping plovers, green sea turtles and loggerhead sea turtles.
Conserve the Point initially formed nearly two decades ago after the property’s long-time owners put it on the market in 2005. It was around that same time the Coastal Land Trust tried to buy roughly 45 acres of the property, but a deal fell flat.
The land has been routinely on and off the market since then. Attempts to buy the land, including those by Topsail Beach to keep it free from development, did not pan out.
Efforts to keep the land development free gained traction after the CEO of a Raleigh-based software company and his wife initiated talks with the town to rezone a portion of the property from C4: Conservation – Inlet Area to conditional use. The change would have allowed the couple to build what would have eventually been a family compound, complete with about a half-dozen homes, a private marina, pool and beach and sound accesses.
Their proposal was met with fierce opposition from area property owners, regular vacationers to the town, and environmentalists who’ve enjoyed walking the shores of the land that has accreted as New Topsail Inlet migrates south.
Conserve the Point regrouped, eventually earning official nonprofit status and expanding its reach as far as 8,000 people from 15 states, Rivest said.
In November 2023, the couple withdrew their rezoning application request from the town and pulled the plug on their contract with the property owners, a move that opened negotiations between the owners and the Coastal Land Trust.
“I have to say we’re indebted to the Coastal Land Trust for getting us to the finish line here,” Rivest said. “Without their fundraising efforts and expertise I don’t think we would have made it.”
Rivest, who along with her husband splits their time living at their home in Carrboro and the house they bought in Topsail Beach roughly six years ago, said she believes Conserve the Point will maintain a role as stewards of the property.
“There’s so much more than I think there is to really share with young children and future generations about how special the planet is and this particular place is such a gift to all of North Carolina and beyond,” she said. “Thousands of people come here every year for The Point’s beauty and serenity and wildness and I think our organization and others will want to see it maintained like that. So, I think our role will evolve, but the community will continue to be very active in protecting this property.”
North Carolina is one of 11 states receiving a portion of the $25.7 million from the Fish and Wildlife Service through the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program.
This year’s annual funding supports nearly 30 projects that will protect, restore or enhance more than 10,000 acres of coastal wetlands and adjacent upland habitats and more than eight miles of shoreline and streams.
