Border Patrol station is under construction; new National Park headquarters project nearly ready to begin.   11/18/2009 by Wayne Nelson

(Photo: Looking upstream along the Rainy River, the border between Minnesota and Ontario. A new headquarters complex for Voyageurs National Park is slated on city-owned land in the “project site.” The national park itself is in the background. Planned amenities along the riverfront corridor on the U.S. side include a riverwalk, museum, hotel-conference center, outdoor amphitheater, fishing pier and picnic areas.)

A development plan a decade in the making is beginning to reshape the International Falls riverfront with a new gateway connecting the city with Voyageurs National Park.

Local and federal officials, along with construction manager Kraus-Anderson, held a ceremonial groundbreaking on Sept. 26 for a new $11 million headquarters complex the city will build on the riverfront for Minnesota’s only national park.

A tour boat, “The Voyageur,” was christened at the groundbreaking. It will be moored at the new park headquarters, and provide tourist tours of the park in Rainy Lake.

Meanwhile, private developer West Second Street Associates has begun actual construction of a new $8 million U.S. Border Patrol center next to the city’s industrial east side. The General Services Administration, which manages federal property, signed a long-term lease for the Border Patrol, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The new Border Patrol center will serve as a buffer between Boise White Paper and a 70-acre undeveloped waterfront corridor that extends another half-mile east along the Rainy River toward the national park. The riverfront plan has identified the undeveloped land for tourism and recreation-related use, including a hotel-conference center, marina, fishing pier, picnic areas and a riverwalk trail. The city has applied for a state Department of Natural Resources trail legacy grant to help pay for the riverwalk.

Falls Mayor Shawn Mason said the vision is a “mini-Canal Park,” modeled on the transformation of Duluth’s downtown waterfront where a century of industrial use gave way to tourist-related development in the 1980s. “We’ve also lived for decades with our backs to the waterfront,” she said.

That vision got a major boost in July 2006 when Boise Cascade, LLC sold the 70 acres to Ultimate Development for $1.4 million and the private developer simultaneously sold an easterly 11-acre parcel to the city for $300,000. The new National Park headquarters will sit on that city land.

The project includes a new 22,000 square-foot headquarters building and museum, a 15,000 square-foot maintenance building and two garages. Construction of the four buildings will begin in May and they will be read for occupancy in March 2011, said Kraus-Anderson project manager Clinton Granhovd.

Duluth-based DSGW Architects is designing the project and contracts for the work, estimated at $8.5 million, will be bid this winter, he said.

The General Services Administration has signed a 20-year lease, and city administrator Rodney Oderness said the city is getting ready to issue $10.9 million in revenue bonds that will be paid off with federal rent payments.

In addition to the national park headquarters project, the city coordinated the negotiations that resulted in the federal site selection for the new Border Patrol center, Mayor Mason said.

The city also has extended utilities to its own property, public infrastructure that has helped make the private land along the riverfront corridor more developable.

The new national park headquarters is part of the city’s overall $15 million riverfront development plan. The city plans to add a new Voyageur’s Heritage Center and outdoor amphitheater on its land at the new park headquarters. Its request for $6.5 million in state bonding support was turned down in 2009, but the 2010 Minnesota Legislature will hear the request again, this time for a slightly smaller $5.7 million.

Securing that funding will be even more difficult in 2010, given the state’s deteriorating budget outlook.

Undeterred, Mason also described another economic initiative underway, a joint effort with Koochiching County’s Economic Development Authority to develop an industrial truck route to the rail-served foreign trade zone in nearby Ranier. The city is annexing needed land for truck access, she said.

The border crossing with Fort Frances, Ontario is the nation’s second busiest measured by rail cars and freight tonnage, behind only Detroit-Windsor, she said.

Mason said the Falls community has momentum working on its side, noting William Rieser, who co-owns Ultimate Development with his wife Kathryn Volin, has won a franchise to build and operate an AmericInn.

“We’re all working very hard. You get a lot done when everyone sitting around the table is accountable and acting with integrity,” she said.

• 1-35 rebuild, school construction boost spending -5/12/2010
• Green hospital construction nears midpoint -4/28/2010
• Boldt wins contract to build biomass plant near Wausau -4/6/2010
• Veterans Place housing project begins -3/5/2010
• Fraser Shipyard gets federal support -12/18/2009