Moorhead agreed Monday to sell its soccer fields and some nearby land to Menards to build a hardware store.
Menards will pay the city $6.3 million for the 60 acres of land. Moorhead will turn a profit of about $5.1 million on the deal, some of which it will use to build a new soccer complex named for Menards.
The Moorhead Youth Soccer Club backs the sale, though it will take a lot of work to replace the Moorview Soccer Complex, said Bill Beutler, the club's president.
"Knowing that we will end up in a permanent place will make it more than worth the effort," Beutler said.
The land the soccer complex sits on was acquired by the city via tax forfeiture in 1991. The soccer club knew the city eventually planned to sell the land to a developer, Beutler said.
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Council members approved the sale after a public hearing Monday night.
"The only question is, 'Menards, what took you so long?'," said Councilwoman Lauri Winterfeldt-Shanks.
Councilman Jim Danielson abstained from the vote, saying he was against naming a new soccer complex for the Wisconsin-based chain of hardware stores.
Danielson called the increasingly common practice of naming public facilities for corporations "distinctly distasteful," but he did not propose to remove that portion of the agreement because it may scuttle the whole deal.
Menards Vice President Marv Prochaska declined to say whether stripping naming rights would be a deal breaker.
"I'm not going to get into that," he said.
City Manager Bruce Messelt said approving the sale on the contingent that the city not grant Menards naming rights would have likely required both sides to rework the deal.
The price of the land was set higher to cover the cost of relocating the soccer fields and to include naming rights, which are still subject to city approval, Messelt said.
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Prochaska said construction on the 240,000-square-foot store should begin shortly after the soccer club's tournament next June. The store, expected to employ between 175 and 200 people, could be open by spring 2007, he said.
If Menards does not open a store on the land within two years after the sale is closed, which is set to happen in February, the city can buy back the land for $1 million less than the selling price.
Messelt said city officials will begin looking for sites for interim fields. A new complex will likely not open until 2007.
One of the potential locations for a new complex is the 100 acres of land the city bought earlier this fall for a future regional park between 34th and 40th avenues south and east of 20th Street.
In the interim, open spaces in city parks or near schools may be used, as may existing fields in Fargo and West Fargo.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Dave Roepke at (701) 241-5535
