UPDATE: General Growth, Frisco Forge 194-Acre Plan

FRISCO, TX-In the latest grandstand play for the far northern suburbs, General Growth Properties Inc. has struck a development agreement to build a waterfront town square on 194 acres. The tentative plan has a hotel-conference center, retail, entertainment and residential space--with a build-out value sure to exceed $200 million.

The Chicago-based General Growth and city officials have been locked in talks about six months over the development agreement. The Frisco Economic Development Corp. recently bought 50 acres from the Mahard family at the tollway's proposed intersection with US Highway 380 and is holding an option for another 144 acres, according to Jim Gandy, the EDC's executive director. The city plans to annex the land once the deal closes in 2007. If all goes as planned, the Dallas North Tollway extension will be done by September 2007, utility lines will be in place or close to it and site work could be under way on the as-yet unnamed General Growth "Main Street" plan, which will require the construction of a lake to pull off the waterfront square vision.

The General Growth unveiling comes roughly a month after Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises Inc. put out word that it is buying 132 acres from the Mahard family to develop Frisco North, another $200-million-plus mixed-use proposal at the same intersection. How the two will mesh, if at all, remains to be seen since both developers are in the early stages of mapping out strategies.

What will result, though, is "a bookend" at the city's far northern end to General Growth's 1.2-million-sf Stonebriar Centre, situated 10 miles to the south in the 720-acre Frisco Bridges, a model footprint for a seamless marriage of mixed uses crafted by numerous developers. "It will complement all the retail we have in Frisco Bridges," Gandy stresses to GlobeSt.com. "This is not a mall, but a destination, mixed-use development. We'd just like to expand that relationship with General Growth to further enhance the 380 corridor. We have every reason to believe this will be their biggest and their best development."

With the city approving an incentive-laden development pact, General Growth's next step will be to pull together a site plan and submit it to the city for action. Gandy says it could take until year's end before the plan is put into local leaders' hands. In all likelihood, it will be early 2008 before the first space comes on line, he adds.

General Growth didn't respond by publication time for comment on the proposal. But in a press release issued yesterday, Butch Papon, General Growth's first vice president of development, says "we envision much more than a place to shop." The vision is "a self-contained community" with street-level retail, second-floor residential units, entertainment venues and restaurants set at the water's edge. The land's southern boundary is Parvin Creek, which also bisects Forest City's claim.