The competition among four groups vying to build Fargo's new convention center is down to the wire. Drekker/Brewhalla's proposal was selected by the Fargo Convention Center Committee, but the City Commission will have the final say. A final decision could come as early as next Tuesday, May 26.
Mark Bjornstad, president and co-founder of Drekker and Brewhalla, the brewery and city market that grew rapidly from his and his partner’s home brewing beginnings, spoke with Prairie Public's Erik Deatherage about what it’s like to be the leading contender, the plans Brewhalla has if selected, and his young entrepreneurial success story.
Interview Highlights
Highlights have been edited and shortened for clarity. For the full interview, listen above.
WHY BREWHALLA FOR THE CONVENTION CENTER?
BJORNSTAD: We've got an amazing team that is super fun, super weird and creative and laser-focused on executing our mantra and why we show up. That's to create experiences and destroy expectations. What we set our sights on does not need to be beer, it does not need to be one product.
We know that as a hospitality company, we can execute any number of projects and Brewhalla is one of the top visited locations in Fargo. We design and execute that hospitality experience day in and day out. We do that in the hotel, with events and with the market itself. That is at the core of what you're trying to do in a convention center, is create an experience for people coming to our community, make it a seamless, effortless pathway for them to visit, have those experiences, create cool moments that are Fargo only so they can get to see what this community is about.
I get why people would say, 'Why should we let some young kids who started a brewery run the convention center?' Drekker and Brewhalla are much bigger than that. We have 80 employees, we're distributed across the world with our beer. This is what we're passionate about and this is what we know how to do.
ON WHY THE CONVENTION CENTER SHOULD BE OUTSIDE OF DOWNTOWN:
BJORNSTAD: There's a lot of doubters that say even downtown has got a black eye right now. I think structurally that's not true. I think there's been some perception things. There's been a little bit of some hiccups in the road, but downtown is an amazing attraction. You go down there on a Saturday or Sunday, Broadway is full of people and families.
Downtown needs some activity and some help, but I don't think that a convention center is necessarily the direct answer for that. Rocky Schneider from the Downtown Community Partnership recently said, in a way, that downtown is where you're going to see a global community issue probably happen first or most visibly.
The problems that downtown has are the same problems that are happening everywhere in Fargo. You're going to hear about downtown restaurants closing because there's more restaurants downtown. There's still restaurants closing in South Fargo and North Fargo. That's the nature of the business, and there's a little bit of that roller coaster in the economy right now that's producing all that.
But downtown is in a great spot. When we look at in 10 and 20 years, the real opportunity is growing that vibe of downtown, and downtown can really only grow west. This is the way that it will grow. So anchoring that with a catalyzing facility like a convention center is the perfect way to do that. This area is already set up as an arts and entertainment district that has the space to put those municipal facilities in it, and then the greater space to do private development around it.
WHAT THE CONVENTION CENTER WILL LOOK LIKE:
BJORNSTAD: If you've ever been to Brewhalla, there's an eight-acre gravel lot to the west of us. That entire lot will get redeveloped into the convention center and hotel complex. So immediately to the west of Brewhalla, there'll be a parking lot for the hotel, and then there's the Marriott Tribute Portfolio Hotel will be built there. That will be about a five or six-story building.
What's really cool about the Marriott Tribute line is that Tribute is one of their boutique brands, and you have the opportunity to name it and design it however you want, to tell the story of the community or just a unique brand on its own. It's going to be Fargo's own specific version of a Marriott hotel, which is a really cool opportunity and such a creative place to tell that story.
Immediately connected to the hotel going west is about a 120,000 square foot beautiful convention center building, and that will line up right on the street. What's beautiful about it is the pre-functioning gathering space that runs the entire convention hall is what lines up on the street, and that's 100% glass lining up on there, so you get this beautiful interaction between the street to the sidewalk to the inside of the building.
We got about five months of the year that aren't great to be outside, but the sun still shines in January, and it's beautiful to see. You just want to be inside and protected from the elements, so if you come to Brewhalla in the middle of January, this building is full of natural light, and people that come here and remote work in the morning or have an event, it feels like summer.
WHAT CONVENTIONS COULD BE HOSTED AT THE NEW CENTER:
BJORNSTAD: The North Dakota League of Cities and Counties — they haven't been able to host their convention in Fargo for, I don't even know how long, because there isn't a facility big enough. So there's local conventions that can't even happen here, and the CVB [Convention and Visitors' Bureau] has been tracking this for a long time, they know very accurately, not just the number that we could attract, but what we're turning away every year. So Fargo is giving money to Sioux Falls, Cedar Rapids, Grand Forks, Rochester.
If we just recaptured that, that would be a massive win for the community. What's funny enough is that as soon as we came out as the number one-ranked proposal, we've already started getting calls from people that want to book an event here, and in two years they want to be able to book it at the Convention Center.
There is incredible demand of people trying to come to Fargo. Fargo is the commerce hub for the region. This is where people want to be when you look at a regional conference center, and we're the only place that doesn't have the ability to do it.