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Only one RTC proposal submitted

Wednesday was the final deadline for proposals to repurpose the Kirkbride building, and when it came down to the wire, only one of the seven developers submitted a plan to the city.

However, that one developer, Minneapolis-based Geitso Export Management, is confident in its ability to make the Kirkbride a mixed-use cultivator of jobs and culture.

The plan would remake the Kirkbride into a facility called “The Global XChange Village.”

“It’s a proposal of what I would call mixed use development,” said City Administrator Mark Sievert. “(It’s) a combination of business – primarily technology-related business – (an) education component, a retail component and an arts component.”

Geitso President and CEO Atul Wahi expanded on the idea, explaining that the sweeping project would include an international boarding school (operating in cooperation with the Fergus Falls School District and M State), next-generation technology concepts like bio-science, and local arts organizations like Springboard for the Arts and ECTOFi Productions – all gathered under the roof of the Kirkbride.

“The idea is to create an environment where we can have self-sustaining and growing jobs,” said Wahi, explaining that the boarding school and the project as a whole would also focus on attracting international students and companies, all interacting with the community.

“You start building a global exchange of culture – a global exchange of ideas,” he added.

The city first received word that not all of the developers would be sending proposals in mid-January, when the redevelopment partnership Gump and Brady reported that they were bowing out of the project. On Tuesday, one day before the proposal deadline, Phoenix Tree Company, Blue Limit, and the local Old Towne Capitol Management all sent letters to the city informing staff that they, too, would not be submitting proposals. That left Geitso, film company ECTOFi, and the humanitarian organization Global Athlete Village, but only Geitso submitted a final plan.

“I understand the complexity of a project of this size, particularly in a community the size of Fergus Falls, but I certainly hoped we would have had more,” said Sievert.

However, what city staff sees as a disappointment, Wahi sees as an opportunity.

“Now we can concentrate on consolidating and moving forward,” he said.

Some of the other developers may have bowed out because they saw consolidation potential with Geitso’s plan. Wahi called the contribution of ECTOFi an “essential component” and added that he has already talked with several of the other developers, many of whom are interested in working with Geitso to create the XChange Village.

City staff plan on releasing the details of the plan in mid-February, after private data has been removed. It will then be available to the public, as well as to many local groups looking to weigh in on the project, from Friends of the Kirkbride to the Economic Improvement Commission. While those groups give their own thoughts on Geitso’s vision, said Sievert, city staff will continue investigating two key questions: “Do they have the technical expertise to do this project, and do they have the financial (ability) to do this project?”

Wahi, for one, is confident that the answer to both of those questions is “yes.”

“I think we have a very good plan to present to the city,” he said.

The building’s scope and the community’s love for it were two elements that lured Geitso to the project.

“The building itself is impressive, and the potential of what it can be I think is what attracted us to it, and you will see that in the vision of the different things we’re trying to do,” he said, adding, “The different people I’ve met in Fergus Falls, they have a passion to make it work.”