Large office park planned for Fargo's near downtown

FARGO-Developers are planning a large office park on the site of a former concrete production facility in north Fargo.

Cityscapes Development has been working with the city to replat more than eight acres in the area of First Avenue and 21st Street North as part of a plan to build six new buildings ranging in size from 8,000 square feet to 12,000 square feet, with the entire project expected to encompass 64,000 square feet of building space, according to Rick Flacksbarth of Cityscapes.

He said each building will have a number of pods, with the basic pod size being about 2,000 square feet in size.

"That would be the smallest amount we would lease out, but they could certainly lease separate sections in 2,000-square-foot sections, each would have a drive-in door, and a walk-in door," Flacksbarth said, adding that the spaces will be suitable for light industrial facilities, offices or someone looking for storage space.

He said the project will be built in phases starting this summer with a couple of buildings.

On the property right now is a warehouse complex built a few years ago that will remain, as well as a smaller building that was once an office for the concrete operation.

Flackbarth said the smaller building will be demolished.

The building is currently leased to an antique store called Big Yard Shop, owned by the family of Hadi Alsadoun, who said he is in the second year of a three-year lease.

Alsadoun said recently he was not aware of the plans for an office park and he did not know where he would move to when it comes to that.

Flackbarth said the office park's location so close to downtown should make it attractive to a variety of tenants.

"There aren't that many properties that are that big just west of downtown and have access to some of the main thoroughfares downtown," he said, adding that possible tenants would include service companies, wholesalers and distributors that work with businesses downtown, or they might be a downtown business that doesn't have enough storage where they do business but would like to have something nearby.

"We've had a lot of people who have asked us about that," Flackbarth said.

The first order of business, according to Flackbarth, will be to create large water retention ponds, work he said may draw a good deal of attention from passersby.

"What they will see happening there first is a lot of earth being moved." Flackbarth said.