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FASNY SUBMITS PLAN FOR SCHOOL CAMPUS AND OPEN SPACE PRESERVE

Proposal Incorporates Extensive “Green” Design and Building Techniques

Limits Campus to 40 Acres While Setting Aside More Than 60 Acres

Gedney Preserve to be Expansive Natural Area for Walking, Jogging and Bicycling

WHITE PLAINS, NY (May 23, 2011) -- The French-American School of New York
(FASNY) said today that it has submitted its plan for the creation of a campus on a portion
of the former Ridgeway Country Club to the City of White Plains. It will enable the
unification of the four divisions that are now housed in three Westchester communities.
The submission formalizes initial concept plans that the school first presented to the
community at an open house last January after it had completed the purchase of the club.

“FASNY will be a valuable economic and cultural asset for White Plains,” said Mischa
Zabotin, Chairman of the FASNY Board of Trustees. “We genuinely believe our proposal is
the best viable use for the property. We will create what we believe is a carefully planned,
environmentally sensitive amenity for the City, one that seeks to protect and preserve the
community character of the neighborhood, while bringing true economic and cultural value
and diversity. We look forward to the dialogue with the City and the public in the coming
months in making this another great educational institution in the City.”

The plan will now be subject to a detailed environmental review under the State
Environmental Quality Review Act or SEQRA. It is expected to take approximately a year.
The Common Council is expected to be the lead agency in conducting the SEQRA review
and other approvals. Although in April the Common Council imposed a six-month
moratorium on development primarily affecting golf course properties in White Plains while
it studies potential future zoning changes, FASNY’s application is permitted to proceed.

The plan for the 129-acre property clusters most of the school’s use to just 40 acres at the
south end of the already disturbed portion of the property. Extensive vegetative buffer
areas will surround the school’s perimeter. State-of-the-art storm bio-filtration and other
stormwater measures will be implemented to address the existing poor drainage conditions
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at the site. Extensive “green” building techniques and practices are incorporated in
architectural plans throughout the campus.

FASNY has set aside 60 buildable acres (not including wetlands) as permanent publicly
accessible open space. Additional acreage is expected to be added to this as the details

of the plan are discussed with the city’s planners and the public. This open space, valued
at $8 million, will become The Gedney Preserve, a passive natural area with public trails
for walking, jogging and bicycling. It will also be linked to the city’s existing trail network
and will be the largest open space in the City of White Plains more than doubling the
current total acreage for all the City’s parks. Additionally, FASNY will make its ball fields
available for public use as appropriate.

Under the plan, vehicle access to the site is restricted to a new two lane, tree-lined entry
drive. No school traffic will be permitted to exit north on Hathaway Lane into the existing
Gedney Farms residential neighborhood.

The access drives to both the middle and high schools and the pre-k and elementary
school have been carefully designed to accommodate both buses and cars within the
campus for student drop-off and pick-up and to avoid queuing on Ridgeway. As part of the
approval process the City will determine what improvements, if any, may be appropriate for
Ridgeway. FASNY would pay for such improvements.

Campus Components

The proposed campus is divided into two sections fronting on Ridgeway and separated
by Hathaway Lane. The key elements are:

West side between Hathaway Lane and Murcheson Place includes both the Upper or
High School and the Middle School. The buildings will be set around a central courtyard.

• Upper (High) School: The former golf clubhouse will be adaptively re-designed to
become the Upper School (grades 9-12) and will also have administrative offices. It
will be linked by a section of new construction to what had been the golf club’s
fitness and dormitory building. There will be 20 classrooms as well as music, art
and science rooms and a library. The ballroom of the club will become the cafeteria
for both the Middle and High Schools.

• Middle School: This is a new two-story building serving grades 6-8 and will include
12 classrooms, music, art and science classrooms and a library.

• Gymnasium: The gym will serve both the Middle and Upper Schools. It will
feature three regulation basketball courts and locker rooms. The gym can be
divided into separate sections to allow multiple activities to take place at the same
time. It will also have a temporary stage.
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• Performing Arts Building: To be built at a later time, this facility will be tied to the
gym by a common center entrance hall. It will include an auditorium with a stage
and 495 seats, a blackbox theater and practice and rehearsal rooms.

• Outdoor Athletic Facilities: Three soccer regulation soccer fields, one with an all-
weather turf and two with natural grass, a softball field and four tennis courts. A
baseball field reached by a walking path is on the north side of Hotel Drive. There
will be no bleachers.

East side to the right of Hathaway Lane.

A single U-shaped, one- and two-story building will house the Nursery, Pre-K,
Kindergarten and Elementary School (grades 1-5) children. Each wing has its own
entrance and administration office. The two wings of the building are linked by a two-story
section that includes the gym and cafeterias. A general use playing field is adjacent to the
elementary wing. A two-way circular drive will accommodate both cars and buses on site.

• Nursery, Pre-K, K Division : The one-story section is on the Ridgeway side and
includes two Nursery, three pre-k and four kindergarten classrooms with a common
area in between that can accommodate group activities. Each classroom has direct
access to the outside for play.

• Elementary School: The left section of the building has 20 classrooms, music, art
and science rooms and a library.

Special Environmental Considerations

Managing Stormwater

• Careful attention has been given to the handling of stormwater on the proposed
campus. The focus has been to design systems that capture and manage all
stormwater on-site. Among the key steps being taken are the creation of three
retention ponds, two on opposite sides of the new entrance drive serving the west
side and one on the east side of the campus. All water coming from the building
roofs will be captured and filtered into garden planters.

Building “Green”

• Environmentally sensitive green building practices and materials will be

incorporated throughout the project. All walkways on campus will be made of
permeable materials. Parking lot runoff will be piped to bio-filtration catch-basins.
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Buffering Adjacent Properties

• Green buffers a minimum of 50 feet wide will be densely planted along the property
border on the Murcheson Place and Hotel Drive sides of the property. Similarly, a
buffer a minimum of 35 feet wide will be on the border between the elementary
school and adjacent properties on Ridgeway. Hundreds of new trees and shrubs
will augment the density of these existing green buffers.

“We truly believe that our campus will be fully consistent with the City’s Comprehensive
Plan and offers the best alternative for this site for the neighboring community and the City
as a whole,” Zabotin said. “This includes clustering our development to preserve the
natural conditions on the site, developing linkages between the public and private open
spaces along the existing City corridor and preserving appropriate public access to open
spaces on the Ridgeway property. We are committed to keeping the community fully
informed as we move into the review process.”

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