A Message From the Owners - July 2021

Dear Woodlake residents,

Several months have passed since Atlantic National Capital (ANC), the new ownership company, has shared a written update regarding the redevelopment of Woodlake. At this time, we are still trying to determine the best means for communicating information to the community, and how often; your patience is greatly appreciated as we continue to work through this. ANC is pleased to report exciting progress from the last few months, and as recent as earlier this week, that we would like to take a moment to share.

We have had some fun and exciting visits with the community during the last few months, and we greatly appreciate everyone who has welcomed us as we embark on the redevelopment of Woodlake. In May, all three sisters of Atlantic National Capital (ANC) had the pleasure of attending the Woodlake Women’s Club Luncheon at Lake Surf Grill where they enjoyed a delicious meal prepared by Chef Chris, and had the opportunity to meet some of the lovely faces who have uplifted the community for the last several years.

One of our owners, Cara Spencer, and her family were able to attend the 3rd of July event, which was a great ode to all of the July 4th events we attended at Woodlake as a family many, many years ago.

As you may have read in our last letter, the road to get here was not an easy one. The first few months of our ownership were dedicated to evaluating the next steps, clearing titles, assessing all land and structures, and putting together a plan of action to share with the Woodlake community. Given the obstacles and unique structure of Woodlake, we anticipate periods where we do not feel like we are making enough headway, and although some of our efforts may seem small in scope, they are big strides as it relates to the long-term plan. The redevelopment process has been grouped into five key categories: first and foremost is the repair and rebuilding of the dam, and returning water back to the lake. In addition to obtaining updated surveys, topography maps, and legal descriptions, we are also working with city and county officials on about a dozen different options in regards to this high priority project. The second is the rehabilitation of amenities and addition of new ones in an attempt to regenerate social activity and opportunities for memberships that include the Clubhouse and golf courses. The third category is residential development. There has not been substantial development at Woodlake for quite some time and is one of our major priorities and areas of focus, including bringing water and sewer to areas in which they currently do not exist. Fourth is commercial development along Highway 690 leading to Woodlake, a focus that is critical to the long-term sustainability and residential development inside of Woodlake. Lastly, the fifth category involves working closely with the current Woodlake POA to ensure that everyone is on the same page in regards to covenants and governance. It is our goal to work very closely with the POA on all redevelopment efforts moving forward, giving them the autonomy and authority to make decisions on behalf of Woodlake homeowners that will benefit the entire community. Each of these five categories of re-development has its own priority and focus that have been assigned among the Atlantic National Capital team members whom you will see on the property at different times working on their respective projects.

Congratulations to the pool members who helped fund the addition of this new playground. These memberships are currently being handled by a separate group of community volunteers for the pool, fitness area, and Lake Surf Grill and have been able to fund events and new amenities such as the playground area. We are working closely with those volunteers to support them in any way they need and our hope is that by next year, ANC will be able to take over this project and roll into an overall clubhouse membership.

In regards to some of the more recent projects that are underway, you may have seen a more updated entrance as we work through the most urgent landscaping needs, curb appeal, and overall aesthetics of Woodlake. This project included an overall cleanup and much needed removal of some overgrown shrubbery that will eventually provide for maintainable seasonal flowers and landscaping. You may also spot a tractor around the property as we begin to Bush hog some of the golf courses to see what type of condition they are in and assess the redevelopment of those. More specifically, the Maples Course, which we have received an overwhelming amount of feedback that it is one of the best courses not only in North Carolina, but the eastern United States. This assessment and repair includes irrigation and pumps that have been neglected for a very long time. We have entered a contract with a golf course architect and design company that will be guiding us through some of these decisions as we work to prioritize the redevelopment of one or both courses. At this time we do not have a timeframe on when this phase of work will be completed.

We conducted an overall cleanup and much needed removal of some overgrown shrubbery around the main entrance that will eventually provide for maintainable seasonal flowers and landscaping.

Another exciting project you may have noticed commencing is the cleanup and repair of the former sales office. We received our formal permit to demo the space on July 6th, and while we are still working on final plans and determining the best use of this facility, we deemed it urgent to go ahead and remove all items from this building and proceed with the demolition as quickly as possible to prevent any further damage and safety concerns it was causing. The renovation of this building is the first step towards providing an office for on-site management, and a place for the entire community to gather information and ask questions as needed. Our goal is to send out a survey in the coming months on how the Woodlake community feels this facility would be utilized best. As we continue to update the sales office, we will be working simultaneously with architects on plans and renovation drawings for the Oates House. Unfortunately, every structure and facility at Woodlake has been left in substantial disrepair and will require a significant amount of cosmetic work. Our goal would not only be to restore it to its original state, but to enhance Woodlake facilities for improved functional and modernized uses in the future. Much of our investment in these amenities will depend on our survey results which will help us determine membership dues and levels based on the requests and needs of the Woodlake community. It is very important to ANC that we provide a finished product that everyone in the community can enjoy and use since it has been so long since these amenities have been available.

The sisters of Atlantic National Capital standing outside of the Woodlake Sales Office on Demo Day. In order to prevent any further damage and safety concerns being caused by the building, we deemed it urgent to remove all items from this building and proceed with the demolition as we work on finalizing renovation plans.

Atlantic National Capital cannot stress enough the urgent need for everyone in the community to please avoid or use caution around all privately owned ANC lands as we work to repair and redevelop facilities such as walkways, bridges, abandoned buildings, overgrown landscaping, and even some areas with water that have dangerous rocks and stumps that are hard to see. Many, if not all of these components of Woodlake are unsafe and will take some time to repair back to a normal, safe state. Further, vacant property vandalism and cars driving through golf courses and other private property and using as shortcuts to entrances are all unnecessary obstacles when there are already so many others being faced.

Although everything we are working on can move quickly at times, we do want to communicate to the community that this is a very long redevelopment process that is going to take many years. We already have two years of working to obtain ownership and clearing title under our belt and now the real work and results can commence. We do not feel like it will take us as long to repair and re-develop as the time it took to get in the state of disrepair, however, there are some components of the five categories of redevelopment that are expected to be a lengthy process. We ask for everyone's continued support and patience as we put everything we can towards making this community what we all know it can be and what it once was. We are also still actively acquiring properties, residences and vacant lots, from those that have reached out to us directly and open to receiving any communication for those that are interested in selling.

We are also working on a “behind the scenes” video to further highlight some of the updates we are working on in regards to ANC owned properties and overall redevelopment. Most of the properties, while in disrepair, have good structure and layouts that will serve as a sufficient base for renovations and adding new functional spaces for future member use.

To keep up with any additional updates, changes, and announcements regarding Woodlake, along with more information about Atlantic National Capital, subscribe to woodlaketoday.com. We welcome any feedback and appreciate all of the positive response we have had thus far. Our current ownership office is located in Fayetteville North Carolina and we will try to respond to any questions in the meantime as needed.

We look forward to providing more updates in the near future, and if you see us out and about, please stop and say hello.

Sincerely,

Your family at Atlantic National Capital

A Message From the Owners

Fellow Residents and Friends of Woodlake,

 It is a pleasure to announce that Atlantic National Capital (ANC) has completed a long involved legal process, which concluded with a public foreclosure auction and they officially filed the deed last week to all Woodlake property previously owned by WLCCC. This filing included the elimination of any foreign ownership in the Woodlake Properties owned by WLCCC. ANC is a family -owned investment company, headed by my daughters, Jacqueline Allison Smith, a Commercial Real Estate Broker, and Janene Allison Aul, ANC’s General Counsel.

 Despite various newspaper reports that this transaction had occurred earlier, there continued to be various legal requirements, including waiting periods before our transaction became official. As such and despite the numerous requests I received to announce this to the community, I wanted to wait until it was official. In fact, we were still reconciling taxes just this week and cleared up all past due taxes on the property on March 31st. Some of these taxes went back as far back as six years. There is also still a major lien on the property which was the subject of the previously scheduled auction that ANC now owns and plans to clear off in the next several weeks.

View fullsize

Janene Aul, ANC’s General Counsel, presents a check for almost half a million dollars to Gary Briggs, Moore County Tax Administrator, that clears up all current and past due taxes for all WLCCC properties in the Woodlake Community (3/31/2021).

This success for the community has been the result of more than two years of work by myself and various members of our community to obtain clear title to the Woodlake Property. As most know this was a complex mess of almost two hundred million dollars in liens, various ownership transfers and interest, a bankruptcy, and years of neglect resulting in a lakeside community with no lake, unpaid taxes and numerous judgments. For more than a decade there has been virtually no new development or improvements within the Woodlake community.

When I was asked by members of the community to help gain ownership or control of Woodlake, the Woodlake Property was in the process of a judgment auction by the Sheriff’s Department of Moore County. If this would have occurred, Woodlake would have most likely been sold in parcels and broken apart. This would have provided no clear path of ever restoring the lake or any other parts of the community to include the club facilities. Even the main entrance was in jeopardy. I agreed to help on the condition that the leadership of the RWLC and POA would assist me in this process. These individuals are too numerous to list, and if there is any credit or accolades to be given for this accomplishment it would have to be given to them, and the other community members that assisted me in putting together information, showed up in Court, and even on their own began opening various amenities for the community. This included the pool and the Lake Surf Grill. We were also able to relocate the POA offices back on Woodlake property. They had been removed from Woodlake property by the previous ownership.

The amenities that were added for the community were only possible as the first action that I took was to negotiate with Ms. Julie Watson a 20 year lease on the club properties. This allowed us to authorize these actions. It also prevented these areas from being broken up in a sale, and prevented alternate development, or even the selling of the wetlands of the lake for development credits. My thanks to Ms. Julie Watson for her help and cooperation. I understand Ms. Watson was the face of the previous ownership and thus strong feelings in the community based on promises and actions she was directed to take. She felt she was “thrown under the bus” and became the scapegoat. Ms. Watson wanted to rectify this and was able to provide us with information that was invaluable in accomplishing our objectives.

I found out early on and what was already known to many members of the community, that until the issues of ownership, unpaid taxes, and multi-million dollars in liens were cleared up it would be impossible to get any government assistance or cooperation to get water back into the lake. Also, as a member of the class action lawsuit, (while successful in obtaining a 162 million dollar judgment from the Courts) we would have had to come up with at least 5 million dollars to satisfy liens and judgments that were ahead of us in the Court filings. Additionally, a class judgment auction would have been a Sheriff’s auction and not a foreclosure and would have required the parcels to be sold off in tax parcels and there were no guarantees that we could have achieved our objectives with a Court ordered sale using the class action judgment.

After my first review of the situation two years ago, there were at least a dozen different paths that could have been taken to attempt to get clear title of the entire community in one entity free and clear of all liens and encumbrances. As we all discovered, this was a first step to getting any assistance in order to re-establish the dam and water in the lake. In going forward we must involve all the downstream parties that need and can benefit from the restoration of the dam at Woodlake. The dam restoration would provide substantial flood mitigation to not only Fort Bragg and Cumberland County, but all communities and individuals affected by flooding by the Cape Fear River from Fayetteville to Wilmington. We want to engage a marketing firm to help us capture and summarize these benefits for myself and the RWLC for our anticipated meetings with our elected leaders.

Regardless of the work ahead, it is nice to announce that we have made what seemed like an impossible accomplishment two years ago. This is due to a lot of hard work by many members of our community, over a dozen attorneys from four different law firms, and millions of dollars, but it is nice to announce it has finally been accomplished. This now enables the community to chart a course forward. It gives us the opportunity to proceed forward with restoring the lake, resuming development, and adding golf and club facilities to the community. In fact, there are almost just as many paths that can be taken to accomplish these objectives as there were with the ownership issues judgments and liens on the property. The good news is unlike the ownership and encumbrances on the property issues, it does not appear we will have to fight (at least hopefully) any opposing forces. Restoring the lake in our community should be a common goal of all residents, and not only our local and state governments, but the communities downstream and even the federal government as well. While I am not saying any of this will be easy, we are now in a position to pursue unencumbered any and all avenues of restoring our lake.

During this process, many of our government representatives have been supportive. These include Congressman Richard Hudson, State Representative Jamie Boles, State Senator Tom McInnis, State Representative Billy Richardson, and House Speaker Tim Moore. However with foreign ownership, bankruptcies, six years of unpaid taxes, and encumbers in the millions, there was not much they could do. As mentioned in the local newspaper editorial, our local representatives did establish a special tax district for Woodlake that can provide Woodlake property owners the ability to generate revenues that can be used for a new dam and payable as part of our taxes over a 10 or 15 year period. These funds could be pooled and added to any governmental funds or grants. Even federal government funds given to counties for flood mitigation require a 25% matching amount from the County. I am optimistic however that there are so many benefits to so many and so much to be gained by a dam at Woodlake, not only by Fort Bragg but several local governments, that we can minimize any special tax district monies needed. This would have to be approved by two thirds (2/3) of the lot owners and we hope the community would be supportive of this, if needed.

It is ANC’s intention to survey and create separate deeds for the dam and lakebed that divides it into parcels so that ANC can provide ownership directly to the County, the community, or the State depending on which program(s) and the funding requirements. One of the first things on my list is ordering an engineering survey for the dredging of the lake with possible peninsulas that will provide us a deeper lake if whatever encampment we end up using has a MSL lower than the prior dam and avoid “bare spots” and a shallow lake.

Part of my agreement with the RWLC and our POA was to remove the “owner” control over the community through Board seats and if successful (which we have been), let the RWLC take the lead on getting water back into the lake and provide the committee with a lien free lake and dam parcels to transfer if needed to the County, State or the community, and give the POA more operational control over the community in exchange for separating the property under development (including commercial improved zoned areas) from POA assessments until it was developed and sold. This arrangement long term generates substantial more revenues to the POA, along with control of the community and its maintenance, improvements and operations. ANC plans on being a property owner that contracts with developers and when needed a management company to operate the club operations (properties zoned commercial) and be a partner with our POA, not an owner of the community seeking control over governance of lot owners. The business operations of Woodlake and related properties owned by ANC are not governed by the ARC/POA as are the developed properties within the community or lots not owned by the selected developer that will have broad form approval subject to their contractual requirements.

The main takeaway in this is that the change of ownership has no effect on your property, your deed or your ownership rights. This transaction was for the private property which made up the golf courses, the club facilities, and development lots owned over the last forty years by various German interests.

There have been various conversations about changing the name of Woodlake back to Lake Surf; however ANC has decided to wait until after we interview and select the developer(s) and develop a master plan for the community. We feel rebranding would be more appropriate after these actions. We will also encourage the developer to survey the community and coordinate these changes with our marketing firms. We have a lot of things on our to do list (all positive) and we look forward to continue to work with RWLC as the lead group in pursuing the best avenue to get water back in our lake and work with your governing board (the POA) when handling most all items that affect the day- to-day operations of the community. Once we establish our plans and select the developer(s) we will either select a management company or put our own Manager on site to work directly with your community leadership and any developers or contractors to see that the implementation is carried out in accordance with these plans. We will also be announcing these various initiatives as our plans are developed to the community from time-to-time to keep you updated. Also, from time-to-time we will ask for your feedback and your preferences as we plan the club and the club facilities.

As noted in my previous letter to the community, I broke out the different areas of responsibility and segments within our community, and unlike the previous situation with the community we will not be charging members fees or club dues until the amenities are in place. Our first priority is to get water back in the lake as any plan to develop the golf course is contingent upon irrigation, and I have been told just to revitalize a golf course is a 12-18 month process. Moreover, we can only start this after we have irrigation (i.e., a lake).

So, while restoring the lake, club amenities (like the golf course) may take time, rest assured there will be no cost or charges to residents during this time. Woodlake (or whatever name may be chosen) will continue to operate as a gated community with various benefits and amenities, like the pool and grill and other community activities as may be approved by our POA.

As conveyed to me in emails and messages by many Woodlake residents, it is a time to celebrate, but as I conveyed to them it is also a time to get to work and plot out our future now that the major obstacles have been removed. We appreciate the support of all the community members as well as your patience as these things have and will take time and will not happen overnight. Not only do we have to coordinate the restoring of the lake with several government entities, there is also bureaucratic permitting and a host of other issues that traditionally take time.

For ANC this is an investment in real estate and a development opportunity. We want a property that both we and the community can be proud of. ANC will leave the governance of your community up to your POA and proceed with development in coordination with the RWLC and the POA. If you would like to assist and work to improve our community we would recommend becoming part of one, or both, of these organizations or volunteer with some of the community groups before wasting everyone’s time by blogging or criticizing on social media. I can only hope that such unproductive activities are a thing of the past. As we look forward, I believe the community is united in our vision for the future and again I encourage everyone to become part of your community governance and volunteer organizations. I can assure everyone that we will be working directly with them as we proceed forward.

So please join me (as I was quoted in the newspaper) in being excited about the future of our community as we continue to move forward and make progress until we accomplish the goals and objectives we have set and will continue to set for our community.