Nancy Edmonds Hanson
hansonnanc@gmail.com

Roers Development of Fargo has signed an agreement to work with the city of Moorhead to investigate and plan options for City Hall and the 96 surrounding acres of land. The agreement was inked after a executive session by the city council, one of several closed sessions in recent weeks in which the potential deal was discussed.
CEO and Jim Roers and his daughter, attorney Shannon Roers Jones, joined the council and city manager Chris Volkers to announce the deal late Monday.
The agreement does not include any payment to or from the development firm. Instead, the Roers group is charged with weighing options to develop the area and gain the greatest return for taxpayers. “Roers was the only developer that has approached us,” Volkers noted. “City staff are not educated or trained in development. This is an opportunity for us and for the citizens of Moorhead to look at the possibilities. We’re grateful and thankful for their interest.”
Roers Jones’ cited the project’s “unique challenges,” emphasizing the collaboration is in the earliest stages. “This building is very unique its ownership and how it’s laid out. We’ll be looking for more efficiency for the city and the taxpayers of Moorhead.
Those challenges center, in part, around the unusual ownership of the adjacent Moorhead Center Mall and surrounding parking areas. Dating back to its construction in the 1970s, the city owns the City Hall tower, the atrium and the hallways throughout the structure, as well as the surrounding lots and parking ramp. The commercial properties, however, are under private ownership. Some stores and offices are owned, condominium style, by their occupants. The rest of the interior space (but not the walkways) is owned by Moorhead Center Mall LLC, a group of private investors, and managed by Goldmark Properties.
The agreement does not involve those private owners in any way. General manager Andrew Nielsen expressed concern to the council when it returned to the chambers at the end of its private session. He said the mall owners have been making plans to remodel and redevelop it themselves as soon as Spring 2020. The agreement between the city and Roers, he said, has been the result of “small groups and private sessions.”
“That’s contrary to the open public discussions and opinion surveys that have been part of the downtown Moorhead planning process,” he told council members. “There’s no point in using tax money for that if the city is already signing its future over to a company that’s not currently involved here.”
Mayor Johnathan Judd disagreed with his charges: “They have a history and legacy of building partnerships and forming trust in communities they serve. As for public input, we elected officials have been having public input for years. The residents want to see something happen here.”
Roers Jones stressed the company has “no intention of doing a takeover. We want to partner with every one of you. It will take many other players to make this happen.”
No money will be exchanged during the predevelopment phase. However, the agreement gives Roers the option to purchase the city property at its appraised fair market value “in lieu of such compensation or benefits.” The city also promises to enter into agreement with the developer to build a new city hall.
The city and developer are to meet in six months to discuss progress. The agreement specifies both parties “agree and acknowledge the meetings contemplated … are not meetings as defined in the Minnesota open meetings law.”
Volkers said the Roers agreement is “inclusive of the downtown Moorhead plan” now being developed by consultants from Stantec, with sub-consultants from Folkways and the Kilbourne Group. Results of that process are due in mid-2020. She added, “We’re working to streamline the process and get the citizens involved. There’s a genuine community interest in revitalization downtown, and City Hall and the surrounding property are a key part.”