April 8, 2024

Groundbreaking Set for $60 Million-Plus Housing, Parking, Theater Complex in Downtown Fargo

| By Helmut Schmidt |

This article originally appeared on InForum. The featured image is a rendering by ESG Architects.

FARGO — Groundbreaking on a major arts, housing and apartment complex in the heart of downtown Fargo has finally been set.

The leaders of the Kilbourne Group and Fargo Moorhead Community Theatre say the $60 million-plus project on the 600 block of NP Avenue will kick off with a ceremony at 4 p.m. May 1, nearly a year later than backers originally had hoped to start ripping up the parking lots between Old Broadway and North Dakota State University’s Renaissance Hall.

“It’s exhilarating, and terrifying, and the best feeling ever,” FMCT Executive Director Judy Lewis told The Forum on Thursday, April 4. “I am so ready to go!”

Mike Allmendinger, president of developer Kilbourne Group, said his team looks forward to forging an arts and entertainment district with FMCT and NDSU’s visual arts and architecture departments side by side.

“We get so excited when we think about all the experiences that people will have in that part of downtown Fargo. And it just adds to our neighborhood,” Allmendinger said.

The complex will include a 472-stall city-owned parking garage, which should be completed by the summer of 2025.

The six-floor Avery housing complex will have 168 apartments for rent. It will wrap around FMCT’s space, which includes a 400-plus seat theater and classrooms encompassing about 31,000 square feet. There is also a 2,440-square-foot street level commercial space that will be available for rent. Those parts of the project will be completed in 2026, Allmendinger said.

When the project was first made public in October 2022, the estimated overall cost was $66 million. The price tag is now expected to be a little lower, in the $60 to $65 million range, Kilbourne Group spokeswoman Sami Harwood said.

Global Development (which owns the former Herbst Department Store/CI Apparel building at 16 Broadway) is also part of the project. Global owns 40% of the parking lot space being used for the Avery/FMCT project. Global partners Warren Ackley and Randy Thorson, have yet to publicly announce how they will develop the Herbst building.

Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney was happy to hear the news.

“It’s fantastic!” Mahoney said. “It will be a drawing power downtown.”

Mahoney said the theater will attract families and people of all ages to the downtown area.

“We’re going to give them a space that they can really show off. I’m really excited about it,” Mahoney said.

The mayor also looks forward to Bell Bank completing its $100 million Bell Tower headquarters this summer at 520 Main Ave.

With several hundred Bell employees working in the 105,000-square-foot tower, plus the NP project’s parking, apartments, and the theater, “I anticipate that we’ll (attract) more development and things happening. … I think we’ll activate more of the downtown,” Mahoney said.

“I’m excited and happy to see it start,” said Jim Gilmour, the city’s director of strategic planning and research. “It’s been a long road to get here. It’s great to cross the finish line.”

Gilmour said the parking garage will fill a big need in that part of the downtown. He said having parking will encourage nearby property owners to develop their surface lots. “A lot of those will get filled in,” he predicted.

Allmendinger said the project’s complexity created delays in financing — especially in what has been “a very challenging time for real estate.” There have also been railroad easements and condominium agreements to hammer out.

“It’s all been good, fair business discussions, but a ton of work to coordinate,” Allmendinger said.

FMCT is now at the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead. The theater has drawn good crowds there, Lewis said. FMCT was forced from its longtime home in Island Park in late 2019, when wooden beams supporting the building failed, rendering it unsafe. The building was demolished in November 2022.

Lewis looks forward to hosting a wide range of performances by the region’s arts organizations.

“It is my strongest vision to be able to have NDSU do a show on that stage. To have the (Fargo Moorhead) Opera do a show on that stage. To have a ballet be able to come and do a show on that stage,” she said.

She said it will also be a premier teaching facility.

“My dream is that we will be the technical cream of the crop, basically. That we will have every bell and whistle to be able to have it be an educational space where people from outside of the state will want to come here and learn about technical theater,” she said.

The theater will double FMCT’s seating capacity, which should make it possible to put on more events, she said.

“That will reduce the number of days that our performances will have to happen, and make more space on the calendar to have other things on the stage. So, I’m really excited (to be) thinking about the arts and entertainment district, to be able to really bring together all the arts in a powerful way downtown. So that is in my vision. And I hope we are able to carve a path to make that happen,” Lewis said.

Allmendinger said there will probably be challenges along the way. One of them being the reconstruction of that stretch of Northern Pacific Avenue. But the project is designed and the financial commitments have been made, he said.

“We’re in a great spot and we’re moving forward with groundbreaking,” Allmendinger said.

He’s also proud of the progress Kilbourne Group has contributed to downtown.

“When you think RoCo, Dillard, Kesler (buildings), were all surface parking lots. Block 9 was surface parking lot, Mercantile was a surface parking lot. And this is a surface parking lot. So, we’re making progress. But, I say we still have 20 years of work to do in downtown Fargo,” Allmendinger said. “Our hope is that every surface parking lot is either green space or has a building on it for people.”

Allmendinger said the creation of Broadway Square by the Block 9 building brought families downtown and gave people something to do. He expects FMCT will become an anchor for the south part of downtown Fargo.

Lewis agrees, adding that FMCT has been part of the community for 78 years.

“I think (FMCT) will be an anchor and a bridge” downtown, Lewis said. “It’s foundational and secure” and can be a place for other arts organizations to share their art.

“I just think it will be a great space, to definitely be that foundation and anchor, and to be a bridge for all of the arts,” Lewis said.