11.20.12

Hoeven: $18 Million in Disaster Recovery Grant Request for Minot's Downtown Reconstruction Project Approved by EDA Investment Review Committee

Grant Represents a Big Part of Imagine Downtown Project

MINOT, N.D. – Senator John Hoeven today said Minot’s $18 million grant request to the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) for the city’s Imagine Downtown reconstruction project has been approved by the agency’s Investment Review Committee. The senator said there is additional work to do before the grant is awarded, but the funds have now been set aside for Minot and represent a big part of the ambitious Imagine Downtown project.

The $140 million Imagine Downtown project is a complex of business and residential renewal projects that will help restore the city’s downtown following last year’s severe flooding. The $18 million, which is from 2012 EDA disaster recovery funding, will improve and expand Minot’s downtown infrastructure in support of the city’s larger reconstruction effort. The grant will be combined with approximately $4.5 million in city match, for a total of $22.8 million. Half of the Imagine Downtown project will consist of low and moderate income housing.

In particular, the EDA grant will help to fund the replacement of destroyed or damaged public downtown infrastructure, including streets, curbs, storm sewers, water mains, street lights traffic lights and other projects, as well as create new infrastructure to support current and active redevelopment projects within the project area.

The city is also seeking approval for $5.3 million in Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to construct two downtown parking facilities for the complex. The balance of funding for the Imagine Downtown project will come from approximately $110 million in private equity.

“Imagine Downtown is an ambitious effort that will reinvigorate downtown Minot, and this funding is a key part of the project,” Hoeven said. “It will enable Minot to continue to grow and build a bigger, brighter and stronger city than ever before for the future.”

Approximate Imagine Downtown project funding includes:

EDA $18 million

City $4.5 million

HUD (CDBG) $5.3 million

Magic Fund $3.0

Private Equity $110 million

TOTAL: $140.8

Virgil Workman Village

As the downtown project advances, a second area of residential development, the Virgil Workman Village, is also moving forward. The senator and city officials have been working with a private developer who has agreed to keep the trailers on the Virgil Workman site. Hoeven and city officials visited the village later in the day to advance the plan to transition to a private-sector residential housing development.

Built during the height of last year’s flooding, the park has served as a temporary housing site for FEMA trailers. Because of the urgency of the disaster and the need to get flood victims settled in housing, the Army Corps of Engineers did not build the infrastructure to city specifications.

Hoeven has been working with the Corps to fix the infrastructure problems so that the temporary FEMA trailers could be sold or donated to victims for permanent housing. The senator today said that the Corps has agreed to upgrade the sewer infrastructure at the site to city specifications to help with the transition.

On hand for the meeting were: Mayor Curt Zimbelman, City Manager David Waind, City Finance Director Cindy Hemphill, Public Works Director Dan Jonasson, City Engineer Lance Meyer and Jason Zimmerman and Lyndsay Ulrickson, both from Souris River Basin Planning.