Signs of Growth Everywhere in Bismarck-Mandan

By Brian Ritter

When thinking about something as abstract as Bismarck-Mandan’s economy, I find it helpful to picture it as a pyramid. At the base of that pyramid are the “core four” industries that provide the foundation of our community’s economy: healthcare, government, energy and education. The resulting economic diversity is one of the reasons Bismarck-Mandan has continued to thrive in the face of low energy and agricultural commodity prices. When one of those four industries is experiencing tough times, the other three ensure the economy keeps producing, and one particular area that’s contributing mightily right now is education.

For example, Bismarck Public Schools is North Dakota’s largest school district with approximately 12,600 students in kindergarten through high school. More impressively, that number is expected to grow by nearly 1,900 students by the 2021-22 school year. In order to accommodate that growth, Bismarck voters recently approved a $57.5 million bond issue that will result in additions to all three of the district’s middle schools, as well as Bismarck and Century high schools.

Across the river, Mandan Public Schools is experiencing similar growth. This is evidenced by the fact that Red Trail Elementary opened in 2014 as a result of increased enrollments in kindergarten through fifth grade. That growth will eventually translate into growth at the middle school level as well, so Mandan Public Schools recently awarded bids for an approximately $4 million expansion to Mandan Middle School.

And one of the community’s private school systems is experiencing growth as well. Currently operating at 107 percent capacity, the Light of Christ Catholic Schools recently embarked on a $46.5 million capital campaign to construct a new campus for St. Mary’s Central High School, remodel the existing St. Mary’s Central High School into a middle school and expand two of the system’s elementary schools.

With all of that expansion in grades K-12, it’s logical that the community’s institutions of higher education would experience similar growth and nowhere is that more apparent than at the University of Mary. Three projects on the Bismarck campus are helping accommodate the university’s growing student body and the first is a new 276-bed residence hall for freshmen students, which opened in fall 2016. The second such project is a new fieldhouse to accommodate on-campus activities that opened in January 2017. And the third is a renovation of the former fieldhouse into a campus center that will serve as the center of campus life, expected to open in September 2017.

While education certainly isn’t the only area of our community that’s growing, it is both exciting and encouraging. It’s exciting in the sense that Bismarck-Mandan currently has more than 2,300 open jobs and in order to fill them, we’re going to need every one of the students in our respective school systems. It’s encouraging because if our school systems are growing, then, by extension, our community is growing and that bodes quite well for BismarckMandan’s future. PB

Brian Ritter PRESIDENT AND CEO BISMARCK-MANDAN DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION BRITTER@BMDA.ORG