FARGO - The Mid America Steel riverfront site in downtown Fargo has the potential to bring the city closer to achieving a vision included in its developing master plan focused on the future.

"It's a large site and most importantly right on the river and right where the river bends," said Scott Page, a consultant with Philadelphia-based Interface Studio, a city planning and urban development company. "This is a critical opportunity for downtown, not just downtown Fargo, but also downtown Moorhead. We look at this as an opportunity to really create ... a new collection of mixed-use development."

listen live watch live

Mid America Steel, which has been downtown since its founding in 1905 as Fargo Foundry Co., was bought out by the city and the Fargo-Moorhead Diversion Authority in June for a total of $22 million.

Interface Studio has been working on Fargo's plan since June.

Page gave a presentation Tuesday, May 23, at the Fargo Theatre on the draft recommendations for a downtown master plan and offered attendees a chance to vote on project priorities. He briefed the City Commission on a similar presentation Monday evening. Mayor Tim Mahoney said the purpose of Tuesday's meeting was for community members to provide some "final direction" to the ongoing study of downtown and to direct commissioners "where we should head."

"This is an important step, but by no means the end," Page said.

Conceptual drawings are merely ways of starting conversations and to see if the work so far is "hitting the right note," he said. He said he doesn't like the phrase "master plan," since major developments like this involve a great deal of flexibility, so it's more like an "umbrella vision."

Page presented a conceptual drawing of what the city-owned land at 205 NP Ave., the Mid America Steel site, could look like, along with other key areas downtown.

Besides a retention pond to help with localized flooding, the Mid America Steel site could combine retail and open space to encourage people to engage with the river. With direct access to the riverfront, Page said it allows for events that are "celebrating the river," which was a suggestion a lot of people told him they want to see embraced in the master plan.

The river is what makes Fargo unique and attractive to the community and visitors, he said, and the master plan intends to highlight and market those qualities.

On the website Downtown InFocus, where information is regularly updated on developing the master plan, an interactive map allows anyone in the community to offer suggestions for downtown - 30 percent deal with transportation and 20 percent on river access. A few of those ideas focused on what to do with the Mid America Steel site, like developing a convention center, hotel, performance arts center or a sort of "post-industrial development" that would be a park, mixed-use site like Minneapolis' Mill Ruins Park.

More information about Fargo's downtown master plan is available at www.fargoinfocus.org.