If 2011 was the year of the oil boom, 2014 could arguably be considered the year of Dickinson’s building boom.
Construction dominated the city’s landscape, impacting everything from businesses to schools and community services. Over the past 12 months, the city saw a number of projects either wrap up or begin, setting the stage for an equally busy 2015.
“This has really been the year of major infrastructure buildout,” Dickinson Mayor Dennis Johnson said.The neat thing was that the city fathers planned all this (suggesting that it's sister cities to the north and northeast just let things happen):
“We started almost three years ago with planning, and after you do planning, you get into engineering all your projects, bidding them, constructing them,” Johnson said. “We really got into the construction phase big time in the last 12 to 18 months. A lot has come to fruition.”
Plans for the future of Dickinson started in earnest with the city’s 2035 “roadmap” assessing infrastructure and outlining priorities for the city’s growth. Johnson said it gave leaders a good direction of where to go, even if they couldn’t anticipate how quickly.By the way:
Of the 50 largest cities in North Dakota, the highest percent increases for the third quarter of 2014 (compared to the third quarter of 2013) were as follows:
Counties with the highest percent increases for the third quarter of 2014 (compared to the third quarter of 2013) were as follows:
- Watford City – Increase of 41.32 percent
- New Town – Increase of 30.31 percent
- Beach – Increase of 22.78 percent
- Dickinson – Increase of 20.78 percent
- Stanley – Increase of 18.41 percent
- Dunn County – Increase of 61.67 percent
- Billings County – Increase of 51.4 percent
- Sioux County – Increase of 51.04 percent
- McKenzie County – Increase of 38.32 percent
- Golden Valley County – Increase of 24.39 percent
Taxable Sales and Purchases, 3Q14
At the link, scroll to the bottom for the pdf.
As long as I'm doing Williston stuff, I might as well add one more. In taxable sales and purchases, Williston leads again. The last time Fargo was ahead of Williston was 2Q11. Williston led the state in 3Q14 taxable sales and purchases:
- Williston: $984,433,645
- Fargo: $757,410,916
- Bismarck: $497,247,696
- Minot: $425,717,626
- Dickinson: $391,276,547
- Grand Forks: $325,888,455
- Tioga: $258,800,232
- West Fargo: $106,123,617
- Williams (Williston): $1,263,947,915
Cass (Fargo): $888,712,608 - Burleigh (Bismarck): $500,612,814
- Ward (Minot): $452,334,582
- Stark (Dickinson): $425,661,220
- Williston: $911,990,254
- Fargo: $707,24,918
I appreciate the post on Williston's taxable sales. I find it ironic that Williston's taxable sales are never mentioned in the media. It is always the stats for the 4 largest cities (even though Williston blows all of them away) or towns with the largest % increase....which could be almost any town. If you triple your taxable sales from 1million to 3 million you have a 300% increase, so you get mentioned. I'm sure if Fargo was number one, it would be mentioned all over the ND newspapers. :)
ReplyDeleteYes, I saw that, too. I was amazed that even at the official state government website story, Williston was not mentioned in the body / narrative of the story. One had to look for it in the accompanying PDF table. The numbers for Williston are absolutely incredible.
DeleteHowever, next quarter, with the anticipated Bakken slowdown, I can already see the headlines: Fargo #1 in taxable sales. The headline, nor the story, will mention that it's taken months for Fargo to finally get back on top, a city that is almost 7 times the size of Williston in the last official US census (14,716 vs 105,549) and a city (Fargo) that has two interstate highways running through it.