Red River revitalization: Fargo & Winnipeg
 

Red River revitalization
A tale of two cities' downtowns

Bartley Kives | Winnipeg Free Press

Updated: May 26 at 09:27 AM CDT

FARGO, N.D. -- Spying a stranger sauntering into her coffee shop on the main drag in downtown Fargo, the clerk can't seem to resist a little Prairie self-deprecation.

"Hope you aren't blinded by our dazzling skyline," she says, offering up the same sort of unnecessary apology you often hear in Winnipeg.

Ironically, I'm actually in North Dakota's largest city precisely because of the dazzling progress taking place in its historic core.

Once an empty collection of warehouse buildings shunned by locals and Canadian tourists alike, downtown Fargo has quietly undergone a renaissance over the past decade.

A five-block stretch of Broadway, the primary pedestrian-friendly artery, is lined with independent retail stores, restaurants and condos, most of them new. Some condos on adjacent streets are now selling for more than US$400,000.

The Broadway streetscape, meanwhile, has been spruced up to the tune of US$7 million. And it's anchored by a project that should serve as a model for Winnipeg hoteliers hoping to rehabilitate the St. Charles Hotel and Royal Albert Arms.

On the corner of First Avenue stands the stylish Hotel Donaldson, a 17-room boutique hotel that National Geographic Traveller recently named one of North America's top 150 places to stay.

Eight years ago, the Donaldson was a sketchy "character hotel" that served as long-term housing for low-income residents. Guests now spend US$170 to US$330 to spend a night in the Donaldson, whose walls are lined with the work of Fargo-area artists and whose amenities include a spa, a funky street-level lounge and a restaurant specializing in .regional cuisine.

To Winnipeggers obsessed with the endless efforts to revitalize our own enormous downtown, the progress in much smaller Fargo is both impressive and perplexing.

That's because the main stimulus for downtown Fargo's revitalization is a combination of city and state tax incentives that have yet to make their way downstream to Winnipeg.

Back in 1999, the North Dakota state legislature approved the creation of a 20-block "Renaissance Zone" in downtown Fargo, offering a battery of tax incentives to people who purchase, renovate or even rent properties within the area.

Entrepreneurs who build or rehabilitate inside the zone get a five-year city property-tax holiday on the value of any improvements to their properties, plus a five-year exemption on state income tax derived from businesses at that location.

More amazingly, people who purchase condos within the zone also get the state income tax exemption, though it must be pointed out North Dakota has a lower income-tax regime than Manitoba.

Nevertheless, the results have been dramatic. No less than 172 projects have been approved within the Renaissance Zone since 2000, including 67 new housing units, according to senior Fargo planner Bob Stein.

More amazingly, the assessed value of those properties has mushroomed from $15,000 -- essentially, virtually worthless -- to approximately $75 million, Stein claims. Most are still enjoying property-tax holidays but the city has started seeing more revenue.

"When you bring in tax incentives, you start earning more money very quickly," Stein says. "Our downtown is actually growing, and you don't see that in many cities."

Eight years into its 15-year mandate, Fargo's Renaissance Zone now encompasses 38 city blocks. State legislators who were initially leery of the zone -- mostly due to the urban-rural cultural divide in North Dakota -- now embrace it as a success story, says Jim Gilmour, Fargo's planning director.

The revitalization would not have happened without the combination of city and state incentives, he insists.

It's a far different story from Manitoba, where the provincial government is reluctant to add education-tax incentives to Winnipeg's existing property-tax incentives for mixed-use and multi-family dwellings.

The project-by-project revitalization of downtown Fargo has accomplished more in eight years than any government megaproject, Gilmour says.

"Instead of hitting a homer, we're hitting lots and lots of singles," he says, claiming Fargoans now see their downtown in a new light.

"People say it to me all the time: 'Boy, I remember when downtown was such a dive,'" says Karen Stoker Burgum, the plucky owner of the Hotel Donaldson, which now serves as a symbol of Fargo's revitalization.

"Responsibility is not the right word, but I wanted to do something for this city," she says. "It really does take a spark."

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myself and many others have argued on here many times for there to be tax incentives to open up downtown buildings to investors but the NDP will never let this happen. Hopefully Doer and the NDP will be put out to pasture in 3 years time. Our downtown is much more complex to solve though with a city almost 4 times larger than Fargo with deep rooted native poverty and crime problems and a political climate unwilling to take any risks. The tax incentive idea though I hope will be hammered home to our politicians (through either the media or ourselves the local populus)to do something to spur development.

IMO, these are the biggest issues facing Winnipeg, giving it the shitty reputation throughout North America that it has today. These need to be address if any true redevelopment of the downtown core is to take place and truly function. Can this possibly happen? Only time will tell.

That is quite harsh saying that Winnipeg has a shitty reputation across North America. You don't travel so much do you? Yes, Winnipeg has its weather and mosquito jokes across Canada, but most Americans just think of Winnipeg as a small Minneapolis. It may not be their favorite place to travel to in Canada like Vancouver or Montreal but Edmonton is hardly on their radar as favorite places. Most Americans think of Edmonton in the same light as Winnipeg as very similiar cities. Except Edmonton is so far North and takes longer to get to. So before you go yapping about the Peg, remember where you are living now. Edmonton?? Your downtown is no better off than Winnipegs... How many large national Head Offices does Edmonton have? Winnipeg has many more and more actual head office jobs than your fine city... Look it up, easy to find that stat..

How is that downtown Arena coming along?

its kind of pointless to compare winnipeg's downtown to fargo's....really fargo has one street a few blocks long...it is a wonderful street, but winnipeg's downtown is substantially larger with a much more complex dynamic.

there will likely be much more residential development in the near future, with the sky condo, the dubrovnick thing, the hotel south of place louis riel converting to residential, the U of W student residence and hopefully the red river student residence in union tower....among others in the early planning stages.


btw, wouldnt the NDP be more likely to give tax credits than the tories?

You're right, Winnipeg's downtown is larger, with several different neighborhoods within it. It's also in a poor city (in a comparatively poor country) that is home to a huge hordes of dysfunctional underclasses.

At the same time, for many Winnipeggers, Downtown Winnipeg is/was essentially one street a few blocks long--Portage Avenue. Sure we've also got Main and Broadway, but Portage is still Winnipeg's main street, the street that most Winnipeggers associate with downtown, just like Broadway is/was the street most Fargoians would have associated with their downtown. But unlike Fargo's Broadway, Portage Avenue is failing as a whole strip: architecturally, it's incoherent; commercially, it's marginal; socially, it's what North Main Street would have been like 30 years ago. What the host of revitalization agencies and other "stakeholders" (Ie, the U of W) has and is doing to "save" Portage Avenue will not change this. Maybe the same type of bold tax credits that the City of Fargo and the State of North Dakota offered would.

Relax chico.

Maybe shitty was a harsh term, but certainly Winnipeg is not favored well moreso by Canadian standards. It's seen as a dingy, dirty, poor, disorganized city. Just ask your typical Calgarian ;) (as I have when I lived there) and their reaction to my saying I'm from Winnipeg was "so sorry to hear that". :rolleyes:

And where did I say anywhere in my post that Edmonton had a better downtown or reputation? Nowhere, so why are you drawing that comparison?

how do you think the ndp would ever give tax credits to spur development. our 2 main provincial parties both suck you have the ndp who don't even bother to change things even though they are supposed to be social democrats who you would think would want to build a rapid transit system in winnipeg if they cared about the environment or build low income housing projects which have not been built in decades now. You have the pc's who just cater to rural manitoba but by doing so have lost their suburban winnipeg base of support. Then the pc's instead of making concrete proposals go out and want to bring back the jets(it could happen but don't use it as an election platform let investors do the work to bring nhl back). The only good policy the ndp has done since 1999 is their immigration program which has finally boosted our intake of people every year. If we had substantial tax reductions in manitoba I could see our population growth grow from 13000 people a year to maybe 23000 a year!

I'll second what Thurmas said.

That's a rather astute observation.

You're right, most people do probably think of downtown as just the stretch of Portage between Main and Memorial.

In that way our 'one street' downtown is very similar to Fargo's.

fargo's downtown is really only one street....winnipeggers may associate portage avenue with downtown, but it is far from that...while i agree that the downtown lives and dies with the success of portage, the issues that face our downtown are not anything like those of fargo...

a handful of trendy shops in fargo constitutes revitalization....it isnt a real living breathing downtown like winnipeg's with large residential neighbourhoods, a commercial core as well as retail nodes....the solution of tax breaks to bring a few condo projects downtown may work there, but winnipeg's issues are far more socio-economic.

and besides...fargo is overwhelmingly suburban...its downtown is ridiculously small for a city its size...compare it to regina as an example....i am not sure it should be held up as any kind of shining example of urbanity.

i have always thought that the biggest problem with our provincial government, no matter what the party is that it appears to represent the 300 000 manitobans that do not live in winnipeg and could care less about the 700 000 that do....they seem to always be at odds with urban issues in favour of those of farmers.

Very well put TV.

Mr. Galston, I recognize that the extreme majority of what this city does is nearly opposite of what you would hope, is it fair to categorize Portage avenue as failing. When I read "failing", I assume 'getting worse'. I recognize that things are not progressing as quickly as many on here would have hoped, but I would argue that we have at the very least seen marginal improvement. In a more general sense, I know many more people today that actually want to venture downtown, than say, 2 years ago. There is a small, albeit real level of excitement amongst many of the younger demographic that I'm in contact with. I too wish for much more, but I would concede that strides - perhaps small - are being made.

A handful of trendy shops? The Renaissance Zone has been much bigger then that, downtown was nothing but a lost cause before and now it at least has a future. People are moving back in and NDSU and its alumni have made a considerable investment in downtown by moving two of its major colleges there. There is no way NDSU moves into downtown a decade or so ago, I don't think the total effect of the Renaissance Zone has been close to being felt yet.

I don't know if the downtowns are comparable, just wanted to clear up a few things about what is going on in Fargo.

There is much more going on than just a handful of trendy shops. For example, the WFP article stated there were 67 residential units built since 2008, and there are more on the way.

Tax breaks benefit any city no matter what its socio-economic conditions are. How do the current slate of megaprojects address Winnipeg's socio-economic issues?

Fargo's Broadway may be small, but given that it is largely devoid of surface parking lots, abysmally discontinuous architecture, shopping malls, pointless "open space", skywalks, vacant heritage buildings, or closed intersections, I'd say it (though certainly not Fargo as a whole) is a shining example of urbanity compared to much of downtown Winnipeg.

i am totally in favour of tax breaks for downtown development...i think katz should have removed the business tax in downtown completely, instead of lowering the entire city's rate marginally.....and i think the province is incredibly negligent when it comes to urban revitalization.

i also love broadway in fargo...it just doesnt make a lot of sense to me to use fargo as an example for winnipeg....except maybe to say that streets without parking lots are nice and that tax breaks work...

67 units is one building.

The thing that really grates me about downtown Winnipeg is the focus on office-only type developments, or re-developments for older, vacant buildings.

As an example, the redevelopment of The Avenue Building was given for office use. Here is a older character building just ripe for residential use in the heart of downtown. Unfortunately there is about 0 demand for new office space in downtown Winnipeg.
This means that the Avenue building will sit dark, empty and deteriorating for another couple years waiting for some existing city firm to play musical chairs with their office space downtown.

Another example is the Union Bank Tower. This building has existing floor plates unsuitable for modern office use. But each floor has 4 walls of windows and perfect space for residential units. This tower should have been converted in condos YEARS ago. To me it seems like a complete no-brainer. Yet someone in their infinite wisdom has held out waiting for, again, office re-development that will never happen in the foreseeable future. This building has sat empty for years now waiting for some idiot to break in and start a fire.
It's good news that the RRC will hopefully move into the Union Tower, but it should NEVER have taken this long.

The city should really relax it's zoning in the downtown to allow development to happen where the current demand lies. When there is no demand for office buildings, the city should be trying as hard as possible to push residential developments for existing buildings and vacant lots.

The same can be said for any of the surface lots around Portage & Main.

I look at the empty lots the Richardson's own between the ball park and Lombard place and wonder why they don't build a fancy condo highrise.

The views of the river and surrounding downtown would be spectacular, the ballpark, Forks, and CMHR would be your neighbours and to top it all off the property sits at the mouth of the Exchange.

Instead, these lots will sit empty for decades waiting for some mystery commercial tenant to fall out of the sky.

this is sad, all our arguments here make much more sense than what city hall has done for 30+ years now. We should be like the simpsons episode where all the smart people take control of springfield!

It would be a big pie in the sky to think the U of Manitoba would move downtown but it sure be be nice to see 27 000 come live study and work downtown. Not to say the u of m doesn't constribute to inner city as it has facilities at HSC and an aboriginal center with a social workers program on selkirk av. I had dreamed of all of the U of M moved downtown while the existing campus at fort garry would all become condos living ...