FARGO — One of the few unoccupied lots along the Fargo-Moorhead area’s interstates won’t stay vacant for much longer.
A new development called The Crossroads is coming to the southwest corner of the Interstate 29 and Interstate 94 exchange, an area which developers note is the most heavily-traveled area in North Dakota.
Former U.S. Rep. Rick Berg of the Berg Group and Tim McShane of Twin Cities-based McShane Development have partnered on the project to transform the now-empty lot into a corporate park. Fargo’s Goldmark Commercial Real Estate is handling the sale of plots on the site, which range in size from 0.7 acres to more than 10 acres.
“It’s an exciting project,” Berg commented. “It really is the gateway from Minnesota into North Dakota and throughout the western part of the country.”
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‘A power location’
Andy Westby, president and managing broker of Goldmark Commercial, said the site’s proximity to both interstates is its greatest attribute. “We believe this to be a power location for any businesses in the Fargo-Moorhead region that are looking to bring significant visibility and good accessibility to their business,” Westby said.
According to promotional materials for the site, traffic volume at the exchange totals 144,000 cars per day. In addition to local roads, that figure includes 71,000 cars per day along Interstate 94 and 58,000 cars per day along Interstate 29, giving it North Dakota’s highest traffic count. “That center point is really the epicenter of traffic and visibility in this state,” Westby continued. “We just think it’s a fantastic opportunity for businesses to raise their profile in our community, to get their name out to be commonly known and easily identifiable.”
It’s also “quite rare” to see a large swath of land available along the interstates in the metro area, Westby noted. The Crossroads site is one of the last areas in the metro core that is yet to see development. “You’re hard-pressed to find open land facing the interstate,” he remarked.
Westby pointed to his own company as an example of what a prominent place along the real estate can do for promotion. He said name recognition shot up considerably when Goldmark opened its offices further east along I-94 and 25th St. S. “It’s really hard to put a specific number on what that means, but it’s incredibly valuable for a company’s brand and a number of things,” he said.
Berg echoed the sentiment, adding a corporate park makes perfect sense for the location. “You drive by any major city and where you have the intersection of two interstates, it’s the ideal place for corporate headquarters,” he said.
He envisioned the site as a possible location for a corporate park, similar to the Microsoft campus just to the south. “It’s an outstanding place for a corporate headquarters. It’s got tremendous visibility,” Berg said.
All shapes and sizes
Westby said the site will offer different options when it comes to development. Clients will have the option to buy and build on the site, or they can build to suit and lease a building. He described plans for the site as a “class A, corporate park-like setting” featuring a mix of large and small buildings to offer a “cohesive yet unique office setting.”
That means The Crossroads can accommodate anything from a large call center or medical facility down to a small office or drive through. The site is primarily geared towards medical, retail and technology offices, Westby said.
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Berg felt that the partnership between his firm, Goldmark, and McShane Development was one of the project’s strengths. “One of the unique things with this development is we have brought several different people together,” he said, meaning they’re able to offer various developments. “I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh wow, that could never work for us.’ We can help them bridge that gap.”
Westby expects that buyers will have access to the lots in the second half of 2022, pending the construction of roads and other infrastructure. The response from prospective businesses has been noteworthy almost immediately. “Even in the early marketing phase, we got a number of prospects that have expressed interest,” he said. “We’re pretty encouraged by the very early response.”
‘So many advantages’
Making the site possible, Berg said, was unifying the ownership of the parcels under one umbrella. Scheels, which according to the city of Fargo owns both parcels , is serving as a “silent partner” in the development, he said.
Unlike several other developments in the area, Westby said the project did not benefit from city incentives. “This isn’t in the renaissance zone or a TIF district like you might see in the downtown market, however the city is certainly excited to see an in-fill,” he remarked.
Despite that, given the visibility the interstate offers and the interest expected to pour in from throughout the region, Westby said the project still made sense. “We feel that even without the types of incentives that one might get for building downtown, this site offers so many advantages,” he said.
The Crossroads development has been a long time coming, and Westby took pride in playing a part. “It’s really exciting to finally be a part of the group who is going to see this turn into something quite meaningful and exciting for the city,” he said.
