At a community meeting this week, Jack Furst provided updates on Furst Ranch, the future huge mixed-use development coming to west Flower Mound and urged voters to approve a new Public Improvement District in May.
The 2,100-acre Furst Ranch property is on all four corners of the intersection of FM 1171 and Hwy 377. The concept plan calls for 3,000 single-family homes, 5,000 multi-family units and 1,000 age-restricted homes. The developer projects 6-8 million square feet of commercial uses along six miles of road frontage on FM 1171 and Hwy 377.
Thirty percent of the land will be open space with 12 miles of trails, and Furst is donating 97 acres on the south side of the property to Flower Mound for a town park with ball fields. The property will also be home to a future Argyle ISD elementary and middle school.
Furst Ranch will be built in phases gradually over the next 30-40 years. At buildout, the development is expected to be home to more than 20,000 people.
Furst, the property owner, and his development team held a community meeting on Tuesday evening at the Denton County Southwest Courthouse in Canyon Falls. During the meeting, Furst provided an update on the development process and described the recruitment efforts being made to bring in a grocery store, hospital, corporate headquarters, hotels, restaurants and lots of other businesses to the development.
“There are no amenities out here right now,” Furst said. “Furst Ranch is bringing amenities.”
Furst said he wants Furst Ranch to be a place where people will have everything they need, all in the same community.
“I’m trying to create a special place to live, work, eat and play, and to do that you need extraordinary amenities,” he said.
Furst explained that he isn’t allowed to build all 5,000 apartments until he finishes nearly 4 million-square-feet of commercial space. He said the apartments will rent for about $4 per square-foot.
“This is luxury living on the prairie,” he said. “When we talk to corporations about relocating here, the first thing they ask is about how much housing we will have, including apartments. The grocery store we’re talking to loves our opportunity to build a cool community with smart apartment growth … the restaurants we’ve talked to say they need foot traffic.”
Furst urged Flower Mound residents to vote yes for Proposition G in the May 4 election to allow for the creation of a Public Improvement District for a large section of Furst Ranch. A PID is a special district in a defined geographical area established to provide specific types of public improvements or maintenance financed by assessments against the property owners within that area.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch; This Prop G is about as close as it gets,” he said during the meeting.
Furst promoted the proposed PID as a “very common finance tool to help property owners within Furst Ranch to pay for their own improvements and amenities, and the rest of the town can use them for free.”
Furst was asked what would happen if Prop G is not approved, and he said “it would slow us down,” and he’d work with the town to try to accelerate the process, which he described as “competitive.”
“There’s going to be a unique window to get the best tenants, and I want to be in the best position to not miss out,” he said. Earlier in the meeting, Furst had said that much of the rest of western Flower Mound will be urbanized in the future, and “we want to soften that urban expression with our ‘modern living on the prairie.'”
The town of Flower Mound has created a FAQ page to explain what a PID is, why it is up for vote, what PID assessments pay for, and more information.
Early voting for the Saturday, May 4 election runs from Monday, April 22, to Tuesday, April 30.
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