City of Fargo nears final draft of Downtown InFocus plan

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) – City of Fargo held a public presentation for the final draft of the Downtown InFocus. 

“Downtown is bigger than it was five years ago, Fargo is bigger than it was five years ago, it is a different kind of set of challenges and opportunities. You have a lot more people in downtown which is wonderful but with that success comes the need to really address a whole bunch of different issues.” Said Principal of Interface Studio Scott Page. 

The City of Fargo’s Planning department teamed up with Interface Studio in 2016 to make a comprehensive planning process for Downtown Fargo. 

The now renamed Downtown Infocus plan which was adopted in 2018 is based on seven elements which revolve around growing the downtown core as a neighborhood and businesses hub. 

The other elements to the plan are efficient traffic of all kinds and managing parking resources. 

City of Fargo Planning Director Nicole Crutchfield said, “Obviously there’s been a lot of change over the last 5 years pandemic being the primary one but we’ve also had a lot of staff transitions and organizational changes we hired interface studios the original drafters of the downtown Infocus plan to give us a report card of how we’ve been implementing the plan and five years into it we’re about 60% implemented. “

But with the amount that has changed over the past five years comes more work to be done in the next fifteen. 

The Planning Department is seeking public comments on the plan by Monday, November 27.

You can email comments to Planning@FargoND.gov.