In today’s Dickinson Press newspaper I read an article that reported on some of the decisions that were made at the most recent Dickinson City Commission meeting.  In this blog post article I just want to focus attention on what was said about the proposed Dickinson Town Square.

After reading and re-reading this Dickinson Press newspaper article, it turns out that a decision was not made on the proposed Dickinson Town Square, rather there came to be a consensus of opinion among the City Commissioners, Downtown Dickinson Association, and Downtown Taskforce that their original and preferred plan to purchase three store-front buildings on Sims Avenue near Villard in order have enough combined space at the corner of Sims Avenue and Villard was going to be too expensive.

As a result of this consensus of opinion that the original and preferred location was going to be too expensive, the City Administrator was now going to determine the feasibility of using the original Town Square design plans, at another city owned location “on Third Avenue West” now being referred to as “Site B”.

I want to stop for a moment, and describe what I think is happening:

The Downtown Dickinson Association is a group of business owners and property owners who have businesses and property in downtown Dickinson.  These people would like to see steady or increased business in downtown Dickinson so that they can make money and have their property hold its value or increase in value.

To achieve its goals, the Downtown Dickinson Association would like to see beautification projects, improvement projects, building rehabilitation, increased occupancy, new businesses, good restaurants, family friendly businesses, good publicity, events that attract people, and activities for people downtown.

At the same time, the City of Dickinson and other organizations such as the Dickinson Chamber of Commerce, would also like to see the historic downtown district in Dickinson prosper, for such reasons as high property values downtown bringing in high property taxes, and an attractive downtown benefiting Dickinson overall.

However, the City of Dickinson, other organizations, and other individuals are not always going to place the interests of the Downtown Dickinson Association first, or before their own interests.  There are other locations in Dickinson that business owners and property owners want to remain important or increase in value, such as the T-Rex Mall area, the Prairie Hills Mall area, the North Hills area, and the Menards shopping area.

This “Site B”, in every newspaper article that I have read for the past year, it merely says “Site B is on Third Avenue West, across from American Bank Center”.  There is only one American Bank Center on Third Avenue West, and it is located at 12th Street West, in the T-Rex Mall parking lot.

After I had written and published this article, a reader left a comment stating that “Third Avenue West, across from the American Bank Center” was not the location of “Site B”.  The actual location of “Site B” is on 1st Avenue West, across from the American Bank Center.  This location is just up the street from the Rock Bar, very near where many of the Live At 5, and First On First concerts were held in the past five years.