The Fargo Park District tonight is expected to approve the sale of land for the upcoming Main Avenue rebuilding project.
The North Dakota Department of Transportation offered the Park District about $52,000 for a strip of the Metro Rec Center parking lot at 3110 Main Ave.
The strip, on the south end of the property, will be used to construct a "backage" road between 31st Street and 32nd Street at about First Avenue South, said Mark Bittner, Fargo city engineer. Traffic from the recreational center and Nash Finch then will flow on the road to gain access to Main Avenue at a traffic signal on 32nd Street, he said.
Currently semis and trucks pulling out of Nash Finch onto a frontage road have a limited view of traffic on Main, he said. Access to a controlled intersection will make entering the busy road safer, he said.
The Park District won't lose any parking spaces, said Jim Larson, director of finance and human resources.
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"It's not any space we're using," he said. "It won't affect our operations at all."
Fargo's Main Avenue will expand from four to six lanes from 25th to 45th streets. Construction is expected to begin next year.
Two more pieces of property need to be secured for the backage road, said Don Wolf, the right-of-way manager for the state DOT. The land has been assessed, but Wolf was unsure whether offers have been made to the property owners.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Erin Hemme Froslie at (701) 241-5534
