FARGO, N.D. – The Fargo City Commission voted to vet the Brewhalla and Civic Center convention center proposals and bring the results to the May 26 Commission meeting.
City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn was the only no vote.
Deputy Mayor Denise Kolpack proposed the motion to use city resources like the city attorney’s office and outside resources to look over the top two proposals.
“I believe we do not yet have an apples to apples financial comparison between the two proposals. Without that, I don’t believe we’re ready to put all of our efforts into one cite for in-depth review,” Kolpack said.
Kolpack believes it’s worth looking into redevelopment of the sites and see if there’s financial tools like a TIFF district.
Piepkorn wanted the city to vet all four convention center sites to see which one is the most financially successful. The other two are Scheels Arena and Fargodome.
“There’s a big difference between [a new convention center] and the Fargodome. The Fargodome has a $49 million reserve fund. This convention center has no reserve fund. So, if something happened where we built something that was not financially successful, that money would come out of the general fund of the City of Fargo every year,” Piepkorn said.
Commissioner John Strand mentioned he wasn’t able to attend any of the convention center committee meetings, but believes the City Commission’s job was to take the convention center committee’s findings once they chose on a site. He recommended the City Commission wait until after the June 9 election to decide on where the new convention center will be built since a new mayor and two City Commissioners will be seated then.
“Four out of the five commissioners sat in on every meeting on the convention center, John. Sometimes leaders have to lead,” Mayor Dr. Tim Mahoney said while asking for a roll call vote.
The convention center will be paid for by a 3% lodging tax that voters passed in November 2024.
