Live, Work, Play ... Park

Downtown developers devise mixed-use plans with parking in mind

BY KAYLA PRASEK

When the city of Sioux Falls announced this spring it had plans to build a new parking ramp in downtown Sioux Falls and it wanted local developers to partner with the city to create a mixed-use development around the ramp, the city was stepping into a concept generally seen in larger cities. The trend, however, has spread to both Sioux Falls and Bismarck with recent project announcements.

The Banks

In Sioux Falls, the city has known it needs another parking ramp downtown to help spur continued downtown development and alleviate parking needs for some time, says Darrin Smith, director of community development for the city of Sioux Falls. “We didn’t want to build just a generic parking ramp. We felt Sioux Falls was ready for mixed-use development.”

The city opened up for bids from local developers, and ended up choosing the project dubbed “The Banks,” designed by Bender Midwest Development, U.S. Hotel & Resort Management and Minnehaha Properties, all based in Sioux Falls. The project will consist of a 600-plus-space public parking facility with underground parking and a green roof that integrates with an 80-unit upscale boutique hotel and a 45-plusunit apartment project. The development will also include a first-class restaurant and potential space for retail and/or office uses. The project, which is expected to cost $40 million, is on track to break ground in spring 2016.

“This project will be the first of its kind downtown,” Smith says. “We expect it to be the impetus for more mixed-use projects. We’re also adding a significant amount of public parking to support continued downtown development.”

Tom Biegler, president and CEO of The Ramkota Companies/ Regency Hotel Management, says its parent company, U.S. Hotel & Resort Management, wants to have a presence in downtown Sioux Falls and has considered locations there since 2007, but nothing was quite right until now. “There isn’t another location we would entertain at this time,” Biegler says. “We want to be in downtown Sioux Falls for a long time. Fargo has done it, and Bismarck is working on it. It’s time for us to do it.”

Michael Crane, president of Bender Midwest Development, says the overarching goal of the project is to attract young professionals to Sioux Falls. “They want to live downtown and have all of their amenities right there, and this project is the first step in that direction. You only get so many chances to develop an area like downtown, so this is our opportunity to make a change and enhance the viability of downtown for years to come.”

Biegler says the core of most cities took a hit with the development of shopping malls, but those downtown areas are now the areas developers see the most potential in for compact growth. “This will be the most vibrant project in downtown Sioux Falls at this time,” he says. “We hope it will spur more development and will help downtown strive to what it can become.”

FiveSouth

In Bismarck, the Bismarck-Mandan Chamber of Commerce and Bismarck-Mandan Development Association put together a strategic plan a year and a half ago that identified the need to attract young talent to the city. The city of Bismarck then called for a study of its downtown area and identified items that could be game changers for the city. The potential of downtown Bismarck interested Don Cardon, CEO of Cardon Development Group, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based company.

“I had been looking for projects, and Gov. Jack Dalrymple told me about the needs in Bismarck,” Cardon says. “That led to meetings with Bismarck Industries and the chamber of commerce and found they were endeavoring to do a downtown project.” Cardon previously led the creation of CityScape, a mixed-use project in downtown Phoenix in which the private sector takes the front-end risk and asks the public sector to take on a minor role. As Bruce Whittey, president of Bismarck Futures and board member of Bismarck Industries, says, Bismarck Industries liked what Cardon proposed and Bismarck Futures, which is the funding source for the privately funded project, was formed.

The project, called FiveSouth, would include a 200- to 250room, seven- to eight-story hotel with rooftop and ground floor restaurants, 90 to 95 units of affordable housing with ground floor retail, nearly 200 units of market rate housing with ground floor retail and a mixed-use office building, along with two parking garages, street level parking and extensive green space. The project, expected to cost $150 million, was recently granted approval by the

Bismarck City Commission to draft a development agreement. Bismarck Futures put together the money to fund all of the studies that go with the project and is providing the seed money, but individual owners and developers are needed to see the project to completion, which the developers anticipate could take five years.

“FiveSouth may not be the answer to everything, but it should inspire other investment and development, while also helping existing businesses flourish,” Cardon says. “We have a lot of faith in its success.”

Downtown Parking

Smith says lack of parking hasn’t yet become a deterrent to development in downtown Sioux Falls, as there is still room for parking to support development. However, “we’re trying to stay ahead of the growth. If you get behind and then you build, the damage is already done.”

In Bismarck, there’s currently plenty of parking near the downtown area, but the FiveSouth project provides several parking solutions. Whittey says parking is always an issue and structured parking is expensive to build, which is why the vision for the project is to have several public and private parking structures in addition to street parking. “Any future development could have a very serious roadblock in front of it without these parking options,” he says.

In downtown Grand Forks, Brad Gengler, director of planning and community development for the city of Grand Forks, says there’s a perception that there isn’t enough parking. In reality, Gengler says, there’s still plenty of room in downtown parking structures. However, Ryan Brooks, deputy city planner for the city of Grand Forks, says any new development downtown would be required to have some type of parking structure.

The goal currently for Gengler and Brooks is to continue getting the word out that there’s still room in city-owned parking ramps and to install way-finding signs around downtown.

In Fargo, development company Kilbourne Group hasn’t faced any issues with lack of parking downtown, General Manager Mike Allmendinger says. “Parking has not stopped us from doing a project yet, but looking at future projects, parking will have to be part of it.”

Allmendinger says Kilbourne Group sees parking in downtown Fargo as infrastructure. “We believe in mixed-use structures and in locations that have apartments and offices nearby. We envision a mixed-use ramp with retail at street level to keep the sidewalk activated and housing on top of the parking structure.”

Continued Downtown Development

Smith says Sioux Falls has an interest in helping its downtown continue to be developed because “if the city doesn’t have a healthy core, there can be a negative effect on the city. We want to avoid that by being engaged with what’s happening downtown. I expect you will continue to see us invest in public-private partnerships to encourage that development.”

As Crane says, “strong communities have viable urban cores. We’ve seen a lot of development through the entirety of downtown Sioux Falls, but The Banks carries that development to another level.”

Cardon says downtown areas need to continue being developed in order to “activate the younger generation and keep them in the hometowns they were raised in. Younger professionals are creative and we’re seeing developers starting to make a move to fresh downtown urban renewals, but that needs to continue to be pursued.” Whittey says Bismarck has a “very active, growing downtown that, if developed in the right way, could bring the young talent we need.”

Bismarck’s downtown needs to continue developing because “an active downtown is a trademark for how people look at your city,” Whittey says. “It seems people want to live in a downtown environment. Mixed-use development is very important because you can live there, work nearby and have social interaction there. Young people want to do all those things in one confined area.”

In Grand Forks, there’s limited space for new construction downtown, so Gengler says there have been numerous rehabilitation projects. Brooks says the city is expecting a second wave of downtown development within the next several years, which could mean expanding what is considered the core of downtown. “We’re already working with developers to develop that fringe area of downtown,” Gengler says.

Gengler and Brooks say the biggest success they’ve seen from continued downtown development is in events that have been attracted to the downtown area. “As downtown has continued to be revitalized, more groups have come in and there’s more going on,” Gengler says. “As that activity keeps increasing, it encourages more businesses to establish themselves downtown because it’s the place to be and the place everyone goes.” PB

Kayla Prasek Staff Writer Prairie Business 701-780-1187, kprasek@prairiebizmag.com