CENTRAL PLAINS REGIONAL REVIEW
Four Corners of North Dakota
The Peace Garden State's 642,000 residents can take pride in the state's claim of being the safest in the U.S., but that doesn't mean companies won't risk expanding there.
Marvin Windows and Doors, already a fixture in the North Dakota employment landscape with 1,700 employees in the state, will be adding about 80 new positions at plants in Grafton and Fargo over the next year and a half. Marvin's supplier Cardinal Glass will invest $4 million and add 25 to 50 more workers in a 103,814-sq.-ft. (9,644-sq.-m.) expansion in Fargo that will house a fifth production line.
Over in Williston, near the trading post and Lewis & Clark State Park, cruise line Holland America Line has purchased a 200-person reservations center from American Express Travel Related Services Co. and offering all American Express employees their current salaries in an apparently seamless transaction. Meanwhile, traditional agricultural companies like Superior Grains are also expanding in the Williston area.
An hour west of Fargo in Valley City, Deephaven, Minn.-based customer relationship management software company
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Nearly into Manitoba, Cavalier's climate is illustrated by its signature amenity: Icelandic State Park. But the business climate warmed considerably in August 2004 when yet another Minnesota relocation paired with an Ontario relocation. The former was by Spinal Designs of Minneapolis, which will move the manufacture of its lumbar rehabilitation system to Cavalier and employ up to 25 people. Meanwhile, after purchasing the V-18 hovercraft product from Vanair Hovercraft of Kenora, Ontario, Vanguard Manufacturing will now make the product in Cavalier, employing 32, in order to comply with U.S. law requiring it to do so to enter the U.S. market. Richard Sheffler, president and CEO of Vanguard, even went so far as to say, "We now have the opportunity to make Cavalier the hub of an international market for hovercraft."
Another small-town project could hold big promise for future energy users considering North Dakota as a location or source of power. MDU Resources Group heads a coalition that has submitted an air quality permit application, currently under review by the state department of health, for a $300-million, 175-megawatt coal-fired plant in the southwestern town of Gascoyne. The town was one of five sites originally submitted by the utility to a state legislative committee in January 2004, the others being Stanton, N.D.; Mobridge and Yankton, S.D.; and Modale, Iowa.
The coalition includes Basin Electric Power Cooperative, MDU, Minnkota Power, Missouri River Energy Services and Heartland Consumers Power District. The original 2001 proposal called for a 500-megawatt, $850-million plant, and was formulated in connection with North Dakota's Lignite Vision 21 Project.
The project stayed on track thanks to a February 2004 agreement between North Dakota Gov. Mike Hoeven and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to resolve a dispute over how air quality and emissions are measured.
The only obstacles in the plant's way are the air permit and transmission capacity constraints. The state is trying to help with both, and the latter point received attention in September 2004 when the Industrial Commission of North Dakota followed Wyoming's lead in backing legislation supporting a transmission authority.
While the authority would give utilities and other private interests first crack, it would then step in — under authority granted to the commission by the 2003 legislature — to plan, finance, maintain and operate transmission facilities both within and outside of the state. The Commission has already helped facilitate a similar body called the Upper Great Plains Transmission Coalition.
