December 14, 2020

Big Things on the Horizon: What’s in Store for Downtown in 2021

Our downtown is the heart of our city and any of the 40 team members that work for Kilbourne Group will tell you that they infinitely love our downtown.

Mike Allmendinger, President of Kilbourne Group, has been in Fargo since 1992. During that time, he attended NDSU, raised a family and built a career.

“I love Fargo,” Allmendinger said. “We never have a shortage of something to do here.”

He’s right, there is absolutely no shortage of things to do in downtown Fargo. You can get a drink, see a movie or a concert, ice skate, shop and that’s just to name a few! That vibrancy is the direct result of teams, like Kilbourne Group, investing in a shared vision.

“I was inspired 25 years ago when I went to my first public input event downtown,” Allmendinger said. “There was such a diverse group of community members showing up with ideas of how to renovate downtown Fargo. But the one thing they all had in common was they wanted to make Fargo better.”

Since that event, downtown Fargo has undergone some pretty drastic changes and it’s about to undergo even more with $200 million in projects currently under construction by Kilbourne Group.

Block 9

Block 9 is almost finished and it’s going to be the crown jewel of downtown Fargo. Developed in a partnership with the R.D. Offutt Company, the mixed-use tower is replacing what was a surface parking lot for the past 43 years.

The building will serve as a headquarters for hundreds of team members as soon as early 2021 and the rest of the project, which will include ground-floor retail, a boutique hotel, a restaurant and residential condominiums, will be fully online later in the year.

The project will also include a community plaza called Broadway Square which is over half an acre in size. The plaza will have seasonal amenities such as a skating rink, a splash pad, vendor spaces, a band shell for live performances and a large video screen that will make the space, “the living room of downtown,” according to Kilbourne Group’s VP of Development and Construction Keith Leier.

According to estimates by Kilbourne Group, the space could attract as many as 600,000 people to the space per year and host over 150 plus events in the first year.

Mercantile

The mixed use Mercantile project on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Broadway is set to be a great addition to our city. The $35 million project is being developed as part of a public-private partnership with The City of Fargo, Kilbourne Group and Tom and Kari Smith, owners of the Great Northern Bicycle company.

When completed, the space will include 367 public parking spaces, 100 apartments, six for-sale condominiums, ground floor retail space for multiple new businesses, and a substation for the Fargo Police Department.

The parking garage is complete and the rest of the project is set to be done in early 2022.

Kesler

After nearly 45 years as a surface parking lot, the Kesler project is set to spruce up the block between 1st Avenue North and 2nd Avenue North. The space will offer a two-level (one underground) 69-stall parking ramp, 9,000 square feet of first floor retail and 109 apartments to bring even more folks downtown. Kesler, along with the adjacent Black Building and the Stone Building, will help activate this block of Roberts Alley.

The Landing

The Landing at 1001 NP is a $30 million mixed-use development at 1001 Northern Pacific Avenue in downtown Fargo. The space will include 154 apartment units (with a mix of studio, 1-, 2- and 3-bedrooms), 217 parking stalls, 5,000 square feet of restaurant space on the ground floor with a large outdoor patio and five two-story walk-up units with private entrances.

 

This story originally appeared in Fargo Inc! magazine.