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Downtown gathering place gathering momentum

There was good news earlier this week in regards to the proposed downtown gathering place.

The City of Minot can proceed with the downtown gathering place with the recent acceptance by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of the project’s environmental review.

In approving the review, HUD sent an approval of Request for Release of Funds to the city, according to a news release from the city.

“It’s great to get this approval, which means HUD recognizes we’ve fully complied with their regulations and requirements,” Minot Mayor Shaun Sipma said in that release. “Now, we can move forward with the next steps to bring this exciting project to our downtown.”

Not everybody is as excited about the project as Sipma and city council. People still comment that the city already has gathering places, in our beautiful city parks. True, our parks are beautiful – gorgeous, actually – and they are well used.

Critics of the gathering place might consider this, though.

The city, within just the past few years, has spent millions of dollars on infrastructure downtown. That should, in time, prompt private business owners to put even more money into their properties to upgrade them and make downtown a better retail business district. A gathering place would not only be icing on the cake for the new and improved downtown but play an important role in attracting activity to the city.

The efforts to improve downtown made sense when the plans were drawn, and they make even more sense today as we witness store after store close in other parts of town.

Granted, we are confident those businesses will be replaced in time, but the trend only rams home the thought that Minot’s economy cannot be joined at the hip with Big Box America.

We, as a city, need to continue to build up infrastructure – cautiously but confidently.

As for the gathering place project, it is gathering momentum, and that is a huge relief.

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