Plans for Major, New Grand Forks Neighborhood - Valley News Live - KVLY/KXJB - Fargo/Grand Forks

Plans for Major, New Grand Forks Neighborhood

  It will be one of the largest development projects in Grand Forks history. Big plans have now been laid out for a 360 acres of empty field, just south of Target.

  The development stretches all the way over to Interstate-29. More than 13-hundred housing units, apartments and single family homes are planned for this half mile square of land.

Brad Gengler,City Planner: "Actually everything minus industrial. There's single family, there's town homes, apartments."

  And plans call for the entire area being surrounded by commercial zoning for stores and strips malls. And in the middle of it, space for a new elementary school and an 11-acre lake of sorts. It's actually a storm pond to capture runoff and prevent flooding in the area.

City Planner: "It's clearly identified that there's a shortage of all various types of housing units. This provides the Community in general a significant increase in single and multi-family housing."

  And City leaders say the development is structured so that the folks who live and setup businesses here, will pay the infrastructure costs.

Doug Christensen, GF City Council: "This project won't increase property taxes. It will collect property taxes. It's not going to cost citizen who aren't living there, an increase in their property taxes."

   Construction on streets and other infrastructure for the project will begin this summer.