Be a Player - Not a Spectator - Forney, Texas

Five City of Forney Officials attended ICSC RECon in Las Vegas, May 23-25. ICSC is a global retail real estate convention that is put on every year, at the Las Vegas Convention Center, by the International Council of Shopping Centers. Forney has sent officials to ICSC RECon for the past four years. Forney's new theme for this year was "Be a Player - Not a Spectator - Forney, Texas". The idea was to promote our city as an active family-oriented community. To illustrate the new theme, the Forney booth displayed a 7-foot-tall photogragh poster showing two young girls playing soccer, with both girls heading for the ball. Anyone coming to visit the booth could pick up a soft stress relieving ball designed to look like a soccer ball. Solid prospects were given small flash drives in plastic cases also designed to look like soccer balls. This years Forney attendees were; Mayor Darren Rozell, City Manager Brian Brooks, City of Forney Public Works Director Mike Shook, Executive Director of the Economic Development Corporation Kim Buttram, and EDC Director Jay Calvin. This year about 30,000 people were in attendance, including 1,000 exhibitors. In addition to the many display booths, RECon offers various workshops and guest speakers. The opening speaker this year was former Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin. Other featured speakers included Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor, and Blake Nordstom, CEO of the well-known national apparel retailer that bears his name. The EDC sent out letters to over 250 solid prospects, showed up with 12 set appointments, ended up having over 25 scheduled appointments, and followed the letters up with telephone calls as well as e-mails. They contacted prospects in the following retail areas: restaurants, fitness, recreation, specialty stores, clothing, grocery chains, and general retail stores. Other entities promoting Forney at ICSC were Edge Realty Partners, the company that is developing Meadow Ridge Farms; the Weitzman Group, which was there to promote its 40 acres behind American National Bank; Grubb and Ellis, the company the EDC recently hired to market its business park; and Joe and Marshall Merritt, representing Merritt Properties, the owners of the Forney Center. The Forney EDC also plans to attend the ICSC Texas retail show in November, 2010 at the Gaylord Texan, Grapevine.