It Takes Two have been talking a lot about local commercial real estate. Whether your region is having a boom of stores opening or building new locations versus the opposite – the simple fact is that there is a lot of square footage out there. Some of it’s filled, but a lot is sitting vacant.
For example, Rick Flacksbarth joins IT2 and mentions the Sam’s Club in Moorhead, MN that shuttered its doors. No longer drawing other businesses to open nearby, this facility sits vacant. It’s not for lack of trying – the agents assigned to the property have been looking for a tenant, but that is a HUGE amount of space and very few national big box chains are expanding into new buildings in untested markets.
The solution? Maybe remodeling to be several store fronts instead of one. This costs a lot of money to the owner, who is already losing $$$ every month the building sits empty.
Maybe the solution could be to take a wash and donate the building to a non-profit? It comes down to the owner, the hassle and amount of upkeep required. 
The short and sweet is that there is no perfect answer, but the sound of half a million square feet of unoccupied retail space is a little hard to swallow. New buildings are breaking ground and, most of the time, it’s all about following the people. When you think of Fargo-Moorhead, we are seeing massive growth in West Fargo, extreme South Fargo and Southern Moorhead. The stores follow the people.
CLICK HERE TO SEE RICK FLACKSBARTH ONLINE
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(Amy Iler & JJ Gordon are talk-show hosts at 790 AM KFGO in Fargo-Moorhead. “It Takes 2 with Amy & JJ” can be heard weekdays 11am-2pm. Check out the show page on
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