FARGO – After nearly an hour of deliberation Friday, the Fargo Convention Center Committee decided to hold off on moving any of the nine convention center projects onto the next phase in the process.
Charley Johnson, who recently retired as the CEO of Visit Fargo-Moorhead but still leads the committee through its process, says that, while he doesn’t want to rush the process of moving firms into the second phase of the RFP process, he doesn’t want to drag the process out past one more meeting.
“We can all go back, study the HVS things, look at our own notes, and we can have one more round of discussion next week,” he said. “I don’t think delaying it any longer than that is going to change any outcome.”
Fargo City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn said he ‘wished we would’ve had the opportunity just to talk’ about the proposals and scoring.
“Not to try to influence, but just to hear what people found, what they saw, what they felt,” he said. “I wish we would’ve done that.”
Johnson talked about the project altogether to wrap up the discussion.
“We are looking for the place that will provide the best visitor experience, because the conventioneers who come to town, the people who come to town for conferences, the people who come for Folkways things, we want them to have a great time, and we want to be able to make sure they have a great time, wherever it is,” he said. “We can do that with any one of these nine (proposals).”
