Wendle Medford

City of Forney

Wendle,

Thanks for your efforts setting up the February 26, meeting with the Mayor, Council, P&Z, TIF,
EDC, & Park Department to discuss progress in the Gateway Development. We felt it was a
very productive meeting, providing opportunity for input from all participants & producing
positive results.

An example of residential units could be multi-family units, townhomes, senior living units,
single-family homes to name a few. Over the last 8 years, we have completed two residential
projects of approximately 650 residential units. We currently began construction of our third
project of approximately 337 residential units. We anticipate this project will be complete
and move in can start around the end of 2018. We currently have a plan for one more phase
of apartments, our fourth phase, which is presently designed and will consist of
approximately 340 units. Our fourth phase has an estimated completion timeframe in late
2020 or early 2021.

This phase will be located next to the existing apartments, not near the bridge and not on the
proposed commercial land.

To recap, that means we are planning to bring on approximately 680 multi-family residential
units as it is currently designed in approximately the next 3 years and if we close on the
transaction, we will bring on 120 units in a retirement facility as noted above.

The only way we would increase activity to bring on more residential units in this area would
be if the market demand was present for another product type like townhomes, single family
homes etc. however we don’t currently see that as a viable option. While we are a private
company and don’t usually give detailed information about our business plan, we felt it was
necessary to do so as a response to the inaccurate and false information that has appeared in
The Forney Posts articles and Mayor Rick Wilsons social media posts. Listed below are just a
few examples of the inaccurate and false information:

• It was stated on The Forney Post that “Council Member Mary Penn make motion to
approve an ordinance allowing the developer to build an excessive amount of multi-family
dwellings' on the property located directly behind Antique Row” at the February 26th
meeting.
o As the facts show, Mary Penn made no motion to approve an ordinance allowing the
developers to build and excess amount of multi-family dwellings as the Forney Post
states, Mary Penn made a motion to secure approval from Council to allow the City
to accept the land the Gateway Development is planning to purchase and convey
to the city as parkland as a condition required in the Contract between the EDC &
Gateway.
• Mayor Rick Wilson stated on his Facebook page that “It has come to my attention
through the announcement last Monday night the developers of the Gateway Project have
intentions to bring a staggering amount of High density apartments. It was revealed during
their presentation to build up to 5000 units connecting to the existing Gateway
apartments”.
 o As Mayor Wilson should know and we pointed out above, this approval for the 5,000
residential units across the 662 acres was approved by the city back in 2009 and is
something that has been discussed throughout his terms as Mayor.
• Another piece of inaccurate information is when The Forney Post states “Warren
Ketteman, Director of the Forney EDC, made a presentation on how the EDC will donate an
EDC owned piece of property to be used as dedicated park land.”
o This is false and incorrect information. The EDC is selling the land to the Gateway
Development, which then will be conveyed to the City along with approximately
12+ additional acres that is currently owned by the Gateway Development for a
new city park that will satisfy a portion of the Gateway parkland dedication
requirement with the City of Forney. Once again, the EDC is not donating their
land.

Our hope in clarifying just a few of the inaccuracies included in The Forney Post and Mayor
Rick Wilsons Facebook post is to dispel any confusion and clarify what happened and what our
current plans are in hopes to continue to have a good working relationship with all city
departments.

Once again, at this time, any future residential development would be based on the existing
market conditions. We currently do not have any plans to develop this area at a faster pace
than we have historically been doing, everything will be driven by market demand. We
understand there may be concern from Forney citizens after reading the article that was
published with many incorrect statements and inaccurate information so we hope that laying
out of current business plan above helps with this matter.

Developer of the Gateway Project in Forney