If Jim Roers didn’t exist, the Fargo-Moorhead region would look much different. For over 48 years, Jim and his business, ROERS, has been involved in constructing and developing a large portion of the city and they’re still going strong.
Jim’s career started in 1976. According to roers.com, during that time, the company was little more than a pull-behind trailer construction company. However, over time, they continued to grow, and eventually, in 1988, they got into real estate development.
“We started doing commercial development so we had enough work for employees to do to keep them working year-round. We would do commercial jobs, and then I would always have a project of my own sitting on the ground waiting to be erected when we ran out of work,” Jim said. “So, in 1988, I put up my very first warehouse building—that kind of was the beginning of development for me. That was so much fun that I did six different projects over time on that same site. When you put employees on unemployment after they finish seasonal work, they get very antsy and they start looking for their first job in the spring. And if you’re not ready to go, you lose them.”
From there, Jim continued doing what he has always done—build for need. According to Jim, the 80s and early 90s were all about “light industrial.” In 1995, things swung towards office warehouse buildings. In the late 90s, things went towards retail. And, since about 2010, things have swung towards multifamily, which has become a major focus for Roers in the state of North Dakota.
“It doesn’t pay to build something that doesn’t lease,” Jim said. “Look at our office spaces. Office spaces have absolutely been destroyed as a result of COVID. Everybody’s working from home. We’re looking to repurpose some of our office space right now. Multifamily is the most profitable right now. It’s not as profitable as retail used to be, but its the safest market out there.”
In order to stay on top of trends, Jim has always watched vacancy rates and “followed the money.”
A Big Need For Housing
According to a 2023 report by the Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Council of Governments, nearly 16,000 housing units are needed in the next 10 years to sustain the city’s growth.
“Over the last 45 years, I’ve seen cycles go up and down a half a dozen times,” Jim said. “If you go from 42nd to 45th, in that vicinity, that was an office park that everyone was clamoring to get into. If you drive through there now, you’ll see a lot of dark windows. But, when it came up, there were a lot of big box users coming to town. There were call centers, and data processing centers, but all of those things are being done from home now. Technology and COVID have tipped the world upside down and it’s going to take 10 to 20 years for us to regroup and repackage our inventory. Right now, you can’t build new office space and make it work… We’ve got an oversupply of all of this inventory for retail and office. So, new buildings are going to be at a standstill. Even though there could be a demand, you can’t build because today’s building costs and revenue streams don’t match up.”
Jim and his team, who also does property management in addition to real estate development and construction, are not immune to this. Currently, they are in the process of repurposing their West 45th Street Business Center located at Second Avenue South and 45th Street in Fargo.
“That building was 97% full for 20 years. But, as a result of COVID, all my tenants terminated their leases when they came due. Now, I’m sitting 40% full. Now, I’ve got to repurpose that building.”
Q & A
Q. How do you select land that you want to develop?
A: We prefer what we call infills. There are developers who like to build on the edge of town, and there are developers who have a passion for downtown environments. We’re kind of in that in-between. We do a lot of work around NDSU, where we take old buildings down and put up student housing complexes. We’ve done a lot of work on 35th Street and 30th Avenue-we’ve got about 237 units going up there. That’s an infill project. We’re going to look at doing about 225 units on the 45th Street Business Centers site-that’s an infill type project… We’ve just never been the ones to go outside of town.
A lot of it also comes down to cost. We know what we can afford per unit, and if the cost is more than that, we walk away from it.
Roers worked on what?
There is no way we could show you all of the projects ROERS has worked on over the years, but you might recognize a few of these.
Rebuilding Downtown Moorhead
Retail in Downtown Moorhead has been almost nonexistent in recent memory. The last of the big retailers left when Herbergers closed its doors in 2018. Now, the city is getting ready to turn the page with the Downtown Moorhead Development project.
And Roers is the master developer for the project. “We’re in the process of demoing now and, eventually, things are going to start coming back out of the ground new again,” Jim said. “This is one of those projects that is so big that we don’t pretend that we can do it all by ourselves. We’re working with other developers.
We’re just managing the acquisition, the demolition, and the relocation of the existing facility tenants and owners, which we are about 90% done with.”
The goal of the project is to rejuvenate the retail and living experience. Upon completion, according to moretomoorhead.com, the renovation will provide 1,200 potential residential units, 100+ dining and retail opportunities, and 2,000 parking spaces in addition to a new library and community events center. Essentially, downtown Moorhead will be the new community hub.
“The first thing we had to overcome was a lack of control,” Jim said. “The mall was under a fractional ownership situation. When it was built in 1973, they sold off little cubes to all these people. There were some 30 owners that needed to be bought out. So, we spent two years buying out each individual unit. Once we got that done, we went into this envisioning process of deciding what Moorhead wanted to be. We did a whole bunch of community events to gather feedback. After all of that, we came up with a vision that consisted of 1,200 living units, about 150,000 square feet of commercial, 150,000 square feet of civic space, and 2,200 parking stalls—that was the grand vision. And that’s what we’re beginning to execute now. There is 30,000 square feet of a new library and community center that is going to start construction very soon.”
This community-focused project brings Jim back to the 90s when he started building strip centers on 13th Avenue in Fargo. “I took one block , then I took another block, and I just kept going down 13th block by block. I just didn’t have a city like Moorhead behind me. I was just doing it because the timing was right.”
“I have to say the Moorhead project has been the most fun project I’ve ever done. It’s really fun because it is so big. Of course, everybody wants things to go right now, but I have always felt that if something doesn’t make economic sense, we’re not going to do it. The worst thing we could do is build Downtown Moorhead and it never comes alive and it goes upside down. And then, 10 years from now, you have a bunch of vacant buildings that you’re trying to figure out who’s going to pay the taxes on. I don’t think that’ll ever happen because we are leading with residential.”
13th Avenue in Fargo. “I took one block , then I took another block, and I just kept going down 13th block by block. I just didn’t have a city like Moorhead behind me. I was just doing it because the timing was right.”
“I have to say the Moorhead project has been the most fun project I’ve ever done. It’s really fun because it is so big. Of course, everybody wants things to go right now, but I have always felt that if something doesn’t make economic sense, we’re not going to do it. The worst thing we could do is build Downtown Moorhead and it never comes alive and it goes upside down. And then, 10 years from now, you have a bunch of vacant buildings that you’re trying to figure out who’s going to pay the taxes on. I don’t think that’ll ever happen because we are leading with residential.”
Jim Roers and his team continue to navigate the complexities of real estate development in a rapidly evolving world. The future of Downtown Moorhead and other Roers projects holds promise for revitalizing urban spaces and creating vibrant, sustainable communities.
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