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So why IS this blog so quiet lately? Why does a formerly talkative blogger have almost nothing to say these days?
Well, for one thing, I have gotten very lazy. I'm busy in real life and I just haven't had near as much time to devote to extraneous activities like running a blog. I'm sorry I'm so lazy...I should try harder to find the time to blog.
There is another reason, though...a reason that isn't the fault of your ho-hum host. Remember how the main topic of this blog has always been the local business scene? Well, these days there is literally almost NO business news to talk about. Drive around town and you'll be hard pressed to find any commercial construction...large-scale or small-scale...these is almost nothing going on.
Sure, there are a few ongoing projects...the new Aurora Hospital is one notable example. Still, a project like that hasn't generated any news for months. Public construction has also been severely lacking this year.
I'm hoping that things will eventually pick up in the local business scene...a pick up in activity on this blog should hopefully go hand in hand with that. There have been other periods of economic lulls here in the past. Things WILL change in the future and there WILL be active economic development once again.
In the mean time, be sure to share your tips and story ideas with me. Just drop me an email if you would like or directly post them to the blog if you prefer.
So they're painting the Alerus Center a dark green color...among others changes underway and still coming to the city-owned events center. Thoughts? You think you'll like the new look?
A Grand Forks restaurant is set to open a new location in Bismarck by next year. The Toasted Frog has submitted a Renaissance Zone application to the city of Bismarck. As in Grand Forks, the Bismarck location would be located in the downtown area of the city.
Always nice to see a local business successful enough to not only build upon their initial investment but to be able to branch out to new markets.
And yes, Bismarckians, they do serve frog legs.
Is it petty of me to be taking some level of umbrage with a select few down in Fargo calling for a diversion to protect that metropolitan area from flooding? (Fargo Forum article) ("Flood Protection Coalition for the FM-Community")
Perhaps diversions can offer advantages over dikes and floodwalls. In fact, I remember that in the wake of the 1997 flood I thought a diversion sounded like the best method of protecting Grand Forks and East Grand Forks. Then I started to realize that the cost was simply going to be far too high and a less costly system could offer a similar level of protection.
Don't get me wrong. The flood protection system that the Grand Cities eventually did construct was expensive. In fact, I sometimes think about the wonderful gift that has been given to us in this system. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to protect us and the money came from not only here at home but from each and every taxpayer in this country. We should be very grateful.
Having said how expensive the system that is now in place turned out to be, we actually did go with the less expensive method. A diversion would have cost not millions but likely billions. So what we have in place is the "cheap" option. Does it give us a "cheap" level of protection? Hardily. Even when the floodwaters rise perilously high as they did this spring, the mood is so different in Grand Forks than it used to be. The system has been tested and it clearly works. In my opinion, quality of protection is not a real issue here. Both diversions and dikes can offer a high level of protection.
Sure diversions limit the need to buyout homes within city limits. Sure dikes can obstruct the view of the river from within the city. Grand Forks suffered dearly in 1997...far more than any other Red River Valley city has seen since. If the residents of Grand Forks had to make sacrifices to protect their city in the wake of utter destruction, why should residents of Fargo not be asked to make similar sacrifices?
Pretending that dikes and floodwalls are inherently ugly things is wrong. Sure they can be unattractive if they aren't done right. The Fargo diversion group's website states that "The dikes, floodwall and such things are unsightly." Really? Have Mr. Schafer, Mr. Burgum, Mr. Offutt, or Mr. Scheel ever visited the Grand Forks Greenway system? Is a giant park bordering the river unsightly? If they did visit, they would find a massive system of well-maintained parks and trails that sees plenty of use and has actually focused attention towards the river instead of detracting from it. In fact, the Red River corridor in Grand Forks went from being something that outside of the downtown area was virtually hidden in backyards to being a public place that anyone in Grand Forks can enjoy.
So if the dikes and floodwalls in Grand Forks provide a more than adequate level of protection while at the same time creating an attractive and massive system of public parks, why would a similar system in Fargo be something to frown upon? Grand Forks went through a horrific disaster and responded by building an expensive but reasonably priced flood control system that protects the city and enhances quality of life for many. Fargo had a very close call and now a group of men with powerful and wealthy names want to respond by spending massive amounts of money to build a system that would offer essentially the same level of protection found in Grand Forks but that would also "protect the view" for a select few.
It may be childish of me, but it basically boils down to this: if it's good enough for Grand Forks, why isn't it good enough for Fargo?
A new "luxury condo" development is coming to the south side of the Kings Walk Golf Course in southern Grand Forks. The building will be built just off of 62nd Avenue South roughly halfway between South Washington Street and Columbia Road. The condos will be 3 1/2 stories high and include underground parking.
Several stores at Grand Forks' Columbia Mall have moved into new spaces or are preparing to do so.
Both Maurices and Victoria's Secret will be getting new spaces in the mall and have moved to temporary locations to prepare for the final move. Victoria's Secret recently moved to a temporary location in the old Target wing of the mall and, in the near future, will move to the former Maurice's space which is being remodeled for the lingerie retailer. Maurices has also moved to a temporary location in the Target wing in preparation for a move to their new location.
Tradehome Shoes is moving to the former Scott's Music space near Center Court. Meanwhile, Scott's has moved to a larger location in the Sears wing. The new Scott's brings together under one roof the Scott's retail store and also the "fine arts studio" formerly located downtown. Lastly, SportsZone recently moved from Center Court to a larger space in the JC Penney wing.
Could this shuffling around of stores and remodeling of store spaces be connected to GK Development's longterm plans for the mall? Have you heard about any other upcoming changes at Columbia Mall?
On Monday, Mayor Michael Brown will deliver his most recent installment of the annual "State of the City" address. Read Tu-Uyen Tran's Herald article here.
Brown usually uses the speech to brag about several accomplishments of the past year and to introduce a couple of new proposals. I'm very interested to hear more about two of the proposals that Tran hints at in his article.
Both projects seem to involve the Alerus Center and its surroundings. One proposal is to develop 42nd Street into a "Destination Corridor." Nothing too new here, but I will be interested to see if Brown has any specific ideas that haven't been brought up before. This is something that the Alerus Center's new director Steven Hyman is pushing for. I'll be excited to see what Brown and Hyman can dream up over time.
The other proposal is a "transportation-related project" that would apparently link the Alerus Center to the Ralph Engelstad Arena. WHAT? ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THAT MONORAIL? That would be uber-cool!
Maybe that whole "New Horizons" plan didn't vanish into thin air like I thought it had...
So, if we did have millions of dollars just sitting somewhere...or maybe if we were God...where would we reroute those railroad tracks and just where would we put those new railyards? I'm thinking rerouting the lines north of town would be the most logical. Below is a little map I put together showing two possible routes that I came up with. The colored lines are the tracks and the squares show potential sites for the railyards. What do you think?
A few months ago, I introduced my idea (pipedream?) of redeveloping the BNSF railyards in the center of Grand Forks. I really do see this as sort of Grand Forks' manifest destiny. If we could somehow reroute the railroad outside of the present city limits, we would have a vast swath of land located directly between UND and the downtown area. Think of just how Grand Forks could be transformed if we could develop a new mixed-use neighborhood right in the heart if the city.
The Alerus Center's new director, Steve Hyman, seems to be a man with a vision. According to Tu-Uyen Tran's great article, Hyman presented a plan today to Alerus Center Commission members. The plan outlines numerous improvements to the Alerus facility over the next 20 years...improvements totaling more than $30 million.
$30 million more for the Alerus Center? What are all those Alerus-naysayers going to say about this? While $30 million may sound like a lot of money, readers should understand that the money would come from a capital improvement fund that has to be spent on improvements to the Alerus Center. This new spending will not require any new taxes...the funding source is already in place.
I, for one, am very excited that the Alerus Center finally seems to have a leader with a plan. Hyman appears to be proactive and has drawn up a plan which, forecasting the future of the center out to 2030, could potentially go beyond Hyman's time at the facility. Too often, a public facility is built and then the investment basically ends then and there. The facility slowly becomes outdated and unusable. This seems to be something that we have experienced many times over the years. The Civic Auditorium was never truly upgraded and it now sits virtually empty and may be destined for the wrecking ball. The GFK terminal has become a dinosaur and has limited Grand Forks' potential in some ways. I'm glad to see that the city's biggest public building project ever now has a leader that seems determined to not let the Alerus Center slip into the irrelevancy that such projects often seem doomed to face.
What do you think about Hyman's plans? What improvements do you want to see at the Alerus Center over the next five years? Twenty years? We only saw a brief glimpse of Hyman's powerpoint on WDAZ today...perhaps someone (Tu-Uyen?) could provide us with that powerpoint so we can see the plans?
The new year has brought a handful of comings and goings at Grand Forks' Columbia Mall.
Certainly the most high-profile change at the mall is the closure of the Royal Fork Buffet. The restaurant had been a fixture in the mall since the early 1980s and, until Sears set up shop at Columbia Mall a few years back, the Royal Fork had functioned as an anchor of sorts for the mall's north corridor. The opening of the Golden Corral Buffet a couple of years ago seems to have had a negative impact on the Royal Fork's bottom line. Since their new competition opened, the Royal Fork both raised their prices and started charging for beverages. In hindsight, I wonder if essentially charging their patrons more was the wisest way to respond to increased competition. Regardless, the Royal Fork was the site of countless family occasions over the years for our family and I will miss it.
While the space formerly occupied by the Royal Fork doesn't appear to have a new tenant as of yet, another restaurant that recently left the mall was quickly replaced with a new one. The Great American Cookies/TCBY in the mall's Dakota Cafe Food Court recently closed. However, the space didn't stay empty for long and a restaurant named Forks and Spoons took over the location. Forks and Spoons serves BBQs, soups, salads, Sloppy Joes and soft-serve ice cream.
Also, Scott's Music is moving out of their location close to the mall's Center Court and into a larger space in the Sears Wing. Scott's is taking over the spot formerly occupied by the Shirt Connection.
What changes would you like to see come to the mall in 2009? Given the current economy, do you think the previously discussed remodeling/expansion plans at Columbia Mall have been put off for the time being?
Ryan Schuster, former business reporter for the Grand Forks Herald, has moved over to another Forum Communications publication, Prairie Business magazine. Ryan is the new editor of the magazine and has a new blog, Prairie Pulse, covering regional business news and trends. Check it out!
In our discussion of how UND might go about expanding its campus in the future, the topic of redeveloping Grand Forks' BNSF railyards came up. The railroad and railyards cut right through the heart of Grand Forks and occupy a large amount of land located directly between the UND campus and downtown Grand Forks.
Moving the railyards and redeveloping the land might be only a dream...something virtually unattainable...but it is still an idea that really interests me. If thought about this for years. I actually see it as sort of a manifest destiny for the city that UND and downtown should grow towards each other and a mixed-use neighborhood should be created between the two areas. If we could ever accomplish this, we would have one giant, contiguous, commercial/campus/high-density residential area running through the heart of the city.
Below is a map to start the conversation. The UND campus is outlined in green, downtown is the blue area, the "New Downtown" area that I've previously proposed and that now the city of Grand Forks itself is talking about is shown in orange, and the potential railyard redevelopment area is shown in red. If you had hundreds of millions of dollars (or whatever sum it would take to magically relocate the railyards somewhere outside of the city, how would you use the old railyard area? What portion would you devote to future growth for UND? What types of public facilities would you like to see located in the new development? What would you want the new developments to look like? Should such a development be built in the classic grid-style of streets to mimic the older sections of the city?
Nothing is as important to the city of Grand Forks as its flagship employer and cultural foundation - the University of North Dakota. UND's enrollment has been up and down in recent years, but I feel that UND will very likely grow by quite a bit in the longterm. If UND does increase the size of its student body and its campus offerings, how will the campus change to accommodate that growth?
When UND was founded in the 1880s, it was placed two miles outside of the city limits of Grand Forks. For years, students had to cross fields by means of carriage, train, or trolley in order to access the campus. Over the last 125 years, the city has grown to meet the campus - indeed, it has surrounded the campus. UND is now essentially a land-locked institution. There are no large tracts of undeveloped land adjacent to campus.
On this blog, I have pushed for the geographical expansion of downtown Grand Forks. That's a proposal which, it now appears, will become the reality in the future. Now, I've been thinking about where and how UND can push its boundaries in the future. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of room for denser development and redevelopment on the existing UND campus. Still, if UND experiences a major increase in the size of its student body, where will new classrooms and residence halls go? If UND ever desires to add large-scale building projects in the future years - a new preforming arts center, a new football stadium, more research buildings - where would those structures go?
The map below presents some possible expansion sites that I've identified. Developing the empty land at Technology Circle is an obvious one. Turning the UND-owned Ray Richards Golf Course into an expansion of the campus is a less obvious and likely more controversial possibility. I think it is really only a matter of time until the giant Chester Fritz parking lot is converted to a parking garage and the existing lot turned into multiple buildings sites. ideas like pushing the EERC campus into the residential neighborhood to the east and converting the neighborhood between University Avenue and 6th Avenue North into more space for campus buildings will be difficult, but likely necessary, future projects.
UND should first look within its borders to accommodate growth and new building projects, but I think it is prudent to identify some potential expansion scenarios. What do you think? Do you feel that UND will ever need to greatly expand its campus? What do you think of my ideas? What about a satellite campus elsewhere in the city? Please share you ideas with us.
At tomorrow night's Grand Forks city council meeting, council members will see a presentation about the new passenger terminal being planned for Grand Forks International Airport. According to the presentation, construction will take place from 2009-2011 and the finished structure is estimated to cost around $21 million.
Update -10/13/2008 - 11:48 PM
Here is a description of the new terminal and some more pictures courtesy of the JLG Architects website:
Designed for efficiency, improved circulation, and future expansion, the new Grand Forks International Terminal offers a comfortable traveling environment within a “Wow Factor” showpiece for the State. Located on a new site, the two-level terminal provides two gates capable of boarding aircraft from the Saab SF340A to the Boeing B757-300 through a passenger bridge with access to all planes, including commuter flights. Space outside the facility includes curbside loading, parking for 400 vehicles, car rental facilities, and a new aircraft apron. Materials, including stone, metal panels, concrete masonry units, and glass curtain wall, were selected to fit the landscape, as well as evoke the concepts of flight. In order to avoid a “visual shadow” for the control tower, the front of the Terminal is slightly higher than the back.
On Monday, Allegiant Air, will debut its twice-weekly, non-stop flights between Las Vegas and Grand Forks International Airport. (press release)
The discount airline is utilizing 150-seat planes for the flights. Allegiant Air has advertised one-way ticket prices as low as $99 between Grand Forks and Las Vegas. However, a search of the airline's website shows ticket prices as low as $29 (Monday, October 6) and as high as $329 (Friday, December 5).
Are you excited to see Grand Forks finally getting service from another airline? Are you planning to utilize these flights in the near future? What other destinations would you like to see added by Allegiant or other potential airlines?
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