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Originally Posted by Midwesterner19
Yeah, that and the small scandenavian furniture store and a few thrift shops are the botiques I guess. Fargo's retail sector downtown is less then that of our sister city in the state to our South and once you take the alcohol serving establishments out its about the same as Grand Forks, which is really redevoloping their downtown fast just look at their paper. The Great Northern and that other restaurant next to the half-block long presently plywooded building sure did well didn't they because they closed!!
I can sure see the crowds of birds in downtown Fargo but I see few people.
Just out of curiousity what is your definition of "plenty" and "alot" of people walking around downtown? It can mean different things to different people, some say one is plenty others say 1,000 is plenty.
In my experience downtown it seems like usually other then cars and lots of them trying to get from Interstate 94 to North Fargo after a day of shopping at the mall!! and you see hardly anybody walking around like one would see in other cities. Sure is great walking on a street that people are driving past at 40 mph to whip the dirt and debris that the cities doesnt tend to clean up!!
I think what would make Downtown Fargo nice is a SuperTarget and Border's (im dreaming), keep the 10 or so bars also. They would have more people downtown and alot (not all) of the stuff they have downtown is currently unoccupied anyway or has hardly any customers it would bring in more taxes to the city by bringing more of the people from West dowtown.
They should also declare the neighborhoods just north and east downtown as blighted, seriously I have biked through some of these areas and they are the reason government's can excercise eminent domain in the first-place. Those homes almost have a shack like appearence and are wood-framed anyway, they have few brick homes in this city also, and not a brick home ive seen in these blighted neighborhoods.
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Hello again,
I see we are all online tonight at the same time. How ironic huh?
Anyways, to begin, when you say Fargo's downtown retail is weaker than our sister city in the state to the south, what are you referring to? Wahpeton? In terms of Grand Forks developing their downtown, well, truthfully there really isn't that much space and property that has to be developed. If you take a look at Aerial Photos of the two downtown areas of Grand Forks-East Grand Forks and Fargo-Moorhead, you can easily see the actual land area of the two downtowns is significantly different. The FM downtown area is easily approaching 3 times the size of the Grand Forks one. So if they were even doing just a little bit of development, in a small area, that would appear to be larger than if it was happening in say FM downtown.
I’m going to have to respectfully disagree once again with you Midwesterner. You seem to think that the national chains and big box retailers are what’s really going to set downtown Fargo apart from every other downtown area. You seem to think it’s success depends on it. While, yes, as the number of people in the downtown core continues to increase, I would expect to see some big box retailers setup shop in the vicinity, like with what is happening in downtown Moorhead with Walgreens building a new store (getting closed to finished too…). But, in my opinion, to copy that which is happening on 13th and 45th and every other American suburban community is not what a downtown is about. It’s about commercial services. It’s about Centralized government services (like our library, city hall, courthouses, police, fire, etc…). It’s about a central place of commerce (banks, legal firms, tech companies, service based companies). It’s not about building a retail giant. Yes, I want to see retail in the downtown core and a decent amount, but it should be the types that your not going to find at West Acres, or Osgood, or the Brandt Development, or the Las Vegas development. It’s about the A.K.A., The Red Shoe, Bone Appetit, Catherine's Collectibles, Christian Eggert Violins, Lena. K’s, Old Broadway, HoDo, Fort Knox, Juano’s, Monte’s, One World Imports, Uptown Cottage, Fantasy’s, The Broken Axe, etc… It’s about the places where the general public can congregate, the Plains Museum, the Rourke Museum, the Hjemkomst Center, Island Park, etc. Downtown is meant to be a destination and central business district. Any retail that would spin-off from that would be icing on the cake. What downtown needs is originality and the rest will follow.
In terms of the areas that should be blighted. I’m not sure why you said directly east of downtown. Directly east would be the Red River. If you’re talking directly east of downtown Moorhead, there’s nothing there. They tore down the two grain elevators to make way for commercial developments. For the area directly north of downtown are you referring to the area north of MeritCare, or the line of houses between the hospital and the train-tracks. If it’s the later, then yes, they should be torn down. If it’s farther north, your talking maybe 1 or 2 homes in certain areas that might need some work, but don’t necessarily need to be torn down. I was driving around today around 13th and the other areas you we’re talking about. I saw a few FOR SALE signs, but not as many as you made it out to be. I also saw a few SOLD signs. Go figure huh?
Anyways, if you’re looking for the areas of town that need the most work in terms of fixing up some run down houses or those that are simply past the point of fixing, you need to drive along the areas right next to NDSU. There are several beautiful homes, but they are the exception. There are many homes that have been housing students for several decades with no upkeep being done on them. I don’t blame the students, because it’s not their responsibility to fix the places up. I hold the renters accountable. Those bastards know they can pack 6 students into a 3 bedroom home, charge $1,200/month (whereas a normal person would scuff at the concept of more than $250/month if you saw the property you’d be renting) on the place and never have to worry, because they know the students keep coming back every year. They also know and take advantage of the fact that the students are willing to pay that price for the convenience of living that close to campus. Many of those houses are becoming eyesores for the campus area, which overall is beautiful. What they should do, is raze a couple of blocks of those homes leading towards the downtown area. Turn it into a sort of Dinkytown. Put some clubs/bars/hangouts, and other student services in high demand (books, laundry, etc….). That way you’d have a connectivity from NDSU to the downtown. I realize that there are families in there that consider that area their home, but I fear as NDSU continues to grow, them getting pushed out by newer developments will be the norm.
The other of town is directly WEST of downtown along 5th Ave N, going towards 15th St. That’s not exactly a nice part of town. I went looking for a home to rent with a friend for college. It was a great deal, $400/month for a 3 bedroom home. We’ll we drove into that area and once we saw the house, it’s door was torn off, hanging on it’s last hinge, the windows were barred up, the yard looked like it hadn’t been cut in over a year, and their was 3-4 junked vehicles in the backyard, and we could have swarn that they were bullet holes in the entry way of the house. Anyways, we didn’t stop to look, we kept driving on. Note to those not familiar with Fargo, this example is an exception to the norm. You usually don’t find this unless you look very hard.
If retail develops it should be at the first couple of floors of several new high-rise towers that I hope become a reality down the road. In terms of parking, the city is going to desperately need to build some more ramps, because parking will become more and more of a problem. The city should have deals too for shoppers that get discounts on the parking when they shop downtown. With as much as you say there’s plenty of parking Midwesterner, I remember reading about and listening to several hundred people complaining about the lack of parking downtown, when they proposed the CityScapes Plaza/ Arena development. So if we do have plenty of parking, any new development will consume that instantly, the way other individuals were indicating.
But Midwesterner, other than that, most of the downtown area is fine in my honest opinion and will only continue to grow and prosper, in the right direction, not towards suburban big box retailer normalcy.
I look forward to hearing your, what seems to be, improving stance on downtown. (you even offered an idea in your last post....
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