CONSTRUCTION REFLECTS A GROWING ECONOMY

BY JIM GARTIN

It’s a great time to live and work in Fargo-Moorhead. For an economic developer, it couldn’t get much better. If you drive almost anywhere in the metro, you’ll see schools, businesses and houses going up. Roads are being put in for new development. In a nutshell, business is booming in FM. It only seems to slow when we run out of workforce to build.

One of the more notable structures going up is Sanford’s hospital, a $500 million dollar facility that will be a level I trauma center. Incidentally, during construction, $34 million was spent by construction workers with local businesses in the Fargo -Moorhead metro. Sanford has more than 600 doctors and 2,400 nurses. In 2015, it welcomed 70 doctors. Sanford’s 2016 goal is to recruit 80 more doctors and several hundred nurses to keep up with patient demand.

We’ve seen a lot of activity across the metro in both retail and business construction. Border States Electric recently put up a new 96,000-square-foot building and has remodeled an existing building. Discovery Benefits expanded its footprint by 26,000 square feet. Integreon expanded by 34,000 square feet. Aldevron spent $8 million on a 45,000-square-foot building. DS Beverages in Moorhead added 22,000 square feet. Some of the construction in West Fargo includes strip malls, a hotel, a new pub and an industrial park. Eventide Living Center recently opened a new facility in south Fargo. Bethany Living Center also increased its footprint. A couple new banks have gone up in Fargo and Essentia Health added a clinic in south Fargo. There’s a new professional office building in Fargo. The list goes on.

Head to downtown Fargo, and you’ll soon see a much different landscape. The Kilbourne Group will soon start construction on Block 9, an 18-story, high-rise building. They spent $5 million turning the former St. Mark’s church into the Sanctuary Events Center. Finally, Kilbourne is activating underutilized urban spaces. Brews on Broadway includes theater and art and is in the old Goodyear site, and the Sudden Urban Park transformed the old Sahr’s Sudden Service Station. That’s a small sampling of the changes downtown with more to come in the next several years.

Single- and multi-family housing continues strong, going up across the metro. The Regional Workforce Study committees are working hard to ensure we are including affordable housing in the mix of residential construction. The committees are also focused on adequate and affordable childcare.

The entrepreneurial scene is growing quickly and creating a young, vibrant atmosphere attractive to people considering Fargo-Moorhead. A healthy entrepreneurial community also helps ensure future business development.

We certainly are blessed to see so much activity going on around the metro — new businesses, beautiful clinics and world-class hospitals, hotels and new schools. It’s easy to forget, but we truly have access to world-class everything. As we work to help companies expand and grow, we continue to look for ways to recruit the needed workforce. We also work to align education and industry so our young people are getting the skills they need to be successful and will hopefully put those skills to work at an FM company. And we will continue that work because the growth continues. And that’s a good thing.

Jim Gartin President Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corp. jgartin@gfmedc.com