Fargo’s Old City Hall Building Will Take Six Weeks to Demolish

Demolition starts Dec. 10

FARGO, N.D. — Fargo’s old city hall was built in 1955, but after serving the community for all these years, it’s time to say goodbye to the building.

Pretty soon, all the concrete, copper and steel won’t be Fargo’s old city hall anymore, but it will be spread throughout the area.

“All that will be reclaimed,” said Terry Stroh, with TL Stroh Architects.

Before the building can start being demolished, a bunch of asbestos, or insulated fibers, was found in the building’s tile and removed.

Architect Terry Stroh says that’s very common to find in older buildings.

“To be very honest with you, we could conceivably find even more during demolition. It’s something that in old buildings, we’re always doing with it,” Stroh said. “It used to be where they would just hose the building down so the dust would be minimal. And they don’t do that anymore. We have to get rid of it before we can blow up the building.”

The demolition is expected to take six weeks.

“They’re going to grab it with a big back hoe. They call it a ‘thumb’. So they’re just going to crunch it, shake it and beat it up until it falls off,” Stroh said.

Once it’s completely destroyed, the building’s space will soon be home to a parking lot with about 80 spots.

That means if you stand on Second Avenue North, you’ll have an entirely different view, including Fargo’s new city hall and Moorhead’s Hjemkomst Center.

Stroh says the surrounding area will then be turned into a plaza which will only add to the revitalization of downtown.

“It’s almost like having Central Park in New York to have a gathering space, a place for people to come, especially with a library, city hall, fine arts center, it could be a really cool place to have events and create a more civic-oriented and community space in town. And with it being right along the Red River, it’s very cool,” Stroh said.

Preliminary plans show what you could expect that plaza to look like.

“We’d have infrastructure to plug in food trucks and stuff like that. And then it kind of steps down into a green plaza that goes to that corner and then we have a big flat area outside of city hall so you could have events out there,” Stroh said.

Stroh says once the city makes a final plan, he estimates the new construction would take anywhere from six to nine months.