When West Fraser told Escambia County it would spend $70.25 million upgrading its sawmill in McDavid, most people who saw the headline made the same leap: a big industrial investment in a small rural area means land values nearby are about to climb. That is not what the actual listings show.
Right now, land in McDavid is trading at close to $26,365 an acre. A few miles up the road in Walnut Hill, it is trading at about $11,301 an acre, less than half. These two communities share a zip code, a school district, and Highway 29. They do not share a land market, and understanding why matters more than the size of the headline number.
The Deal That Started the Conversation
The timeline moved fast. On a Thursday night in May 2026, the Escambia County Commission approved an Economic Development Ad Valorem Tax Exemption for West Fraser's existing sawmill, giving the company a 70 percent property tax exemption on its new investment over a five-year period, worth $590,969 in the current fiscal year alone. Less than 12 hours later, the FloridaWest Economic Development Alliance announced the company's $70.25 million capital expansion at its facility on Champion Drive, off Highway 29 in McDavid.
The spending is not landing all at once. Roughly $28 million is planned for year one, $20.5 million in year two, $13.4 million in year three, and $8.3 million in year four. The project is expected to create 30 new production jobs averaging $49,920 a year, a gross annual payroll of $10.7 million. West Fraser's vice president of capital and technology, Chuck Watkins, framed the decision around the region's workforce and its long history in forestry. FloridaWest's CEO, Chris Platé, called it proof the community is competitive for continued investment.
This detail matters for everything that follows: West Fraser already had a sawmill here. This is an existing employer expanding, not a new plant landing cold on undeveloped ground. That distinction changes how far the ripple actually travels.
Two Communities, One Zip Code, Two Very Different Markets
Both Walnut Hill and McDavid sit inside zip code 32568, and if you search land listings by zip code, you get one blended number: an average of $13,806 per acre across 112 properties. That figure sits closer to Walnut Hill's price point than McDavid's, because more of the acreage currently listed in the shared zip code is Walnut Hill's larger farm and timber tracts.
Here is how the two communities actually compare on their own:
| Walnut Hill | McDavid | |
|---|---|---|
| Properties currently listed | 20 | 80 |
| Average price per acre | $11,301 | $26,365 |
| Average listing price | $1,014,457 | $278,645 |
| Median list price | $680,000 | not separately reported |
| Average parcel size | 89.8 acres | smaller, highway-adjacent tracts |
A buyer who searches "land for sale 32568" and reads only the blended average walks away with a number that describes neither place accurately. It is a reminder that in a market this small, the zip code is not the market. The community is.
Why the Highway Does More Work Than the Payroll
The pattern predates the sawmill news, and that is the point. McDavid's smaller parcels sit closer to Highway 29 and the town's Main Street corridor, near the same road access West Fraser uses to run Champion Drive and near the McDavid Post Office. Frontage on a state highway and proximity to an established commercial spine carry their own per-acre premium, independent of who is hiring down the road.
Walnut Hill's land for sale skews the other direction. The average parcel currently listed runs close to 90 acres, land priced for what it produces or preserves, whether that is timber, row crops, or simple privacy, not for its distance to a payroll. A 90-acre timber tract and a 4-acre highway-frontage lot are not competing for the same buyer, and they never have been. The mill's expansion adds visibility to McDavid. It does not change what makes a Walnut Hill farm tract worth what it is worth.
What Thirty Jobs Actually Buys
Thirty new production jobs at an average salary of $49,920 is real money moving into the local economy, and a gross payroll of $10.7 million is not nothing in a community this size. But it is worth sitting with what that number is not. It is not a new employer parachuting in with a workforce that needs housing built from scratch. It is an existing sawmill investing in capacity and efficiency over a four-year build-out, with the bulk of the spending going toward equipment and construction rather than an immediate wave of new households.
That is the gap between the story implied by a $70 million headline and the story the land listings actually tell. Thirty jobs, phased in over four years, is not the kind of demand shock that reprices ninety-acre timber tracts a few miles away. It is, at most, a reason more buyers glance at the smaller parcels closest to the corridor where those jobs sit, which is exactly where McDavid's higher per-acre price already lives.
The Part of Town That Still Runs on Its Own Clock
Drive a few miles off Highway 29 and the calendar here still belongs to the Walnut Hill Ruritan Club more than to any employer. In March 2026, the club held its 50th Annual Farm Equipment Auction at the Walnut Hill Community Center on Highway 97, just north of Ernest Ward Middle School, selling everything from tractors to tools to antiques, with a 10 percent buyer's premium capped at $500 and concessions running the whole day. That kind of continuity, the same event in its 50th year, says more about how this area actually functions than any single capital announcement does.
It is also a place where small-town infrastructure runs on its own pace. As of January 2026, the Walnut Hill post office had been closed for six months over a service issue with USPS, the kind of local friction that barely makes news anywhere else but matters to the people who drive to McDavid for their mail. None of this shows up in a land listing, but it is the texture a buyer comparing these two communities should actually understand before assuming a $70 million project a few miles away changes daily life the same way in both places.
What This Means If You're Comparing These Two Communities
If you are looking at acreage for what the land itself can do, timber, row crops, room to spread out, the Walnut Hill numbers are the ones worth watching, and the West Fraser expansion does not by itself justify paying above what that land would otherwise support. If you want proximity to the Highway 29 corridor and the employment base anchored there, the McDavid premium already reflects that position. It is not a discount waiting to happen once the expansion is finished.
Zoom out and the timing lands against a county that is already moving. Escambia County's median sale price ran $325,000 over the three months ending June 2026, up 10.7 percent from the same period a year earlier, with homes selling in about 72 days on average, down from 81 days the year before. That is the backdrop this deal is landing on: a county already appreciating, with two adjacent rural communities pricing very differently within it. Knowing which one you are actually buying into is the part the zip code average will never tell you.
Quick Questions
Does the tax exemption lower property taxes for homeowners near the mill? No. The exemption applies specifically to West Fraser's new capital investment under Florida's Economic Development Ad Valorem Tax Exemption law. It does not reduce residential property tax bills for nearby homeowners.
Will McDavid keep pricing higher than Walnut Hill per acre? The gap is tied to highway frontage and parcel size, patterns that predate this expansion, so it is likely to hold regardless of how the four-year build-out plays out.
Does this expansion mean land prices countywide are about to jump? Escambia County's median sale price was already up 10.7 percent year over year as of June 2026. This expansion is a local factor inside that broader trend, not a separate one driving it.
Comparing acreage across two communities that look identical on paper takes more than a zip code search. If you are weighing Walnut Hill against McDavid, or trying to figure out what a specific parcel is actually worth before you make an offer, PHD Realty knows this stretch of Highway 29 well enough to tell you which number matters. Contact Us.
