Kevin Bartram’s companies are nearly ready to rent the newer section of the Fairmont Creamery complex on First Avenue North. Renovation of the century-old creamery building will be complete in mid-2025. (Photo/Nancy Hanson.)

The first of two buildings is taking shape on the 650 Block on the corner of Center Avenue and Seventh Street. When complete in Fall 2025, the complex will include 121 apartments with varying sizes and rents, along with Downtown Chiropractic and The Title Team (Clay County Abstract) on the ground floor.

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

If downtown Moorhead achieves its dreams of becoming a vibrant, walkable neighborhood, architect/developer Kevin Bartram will have played an outsize part in it.
What had been lacking over the past half-century, urban planners agree, was people. While the Center Mall was once filled with retail and service businesses, it went dark when they locked their doors each night. Workers and customers drove away to homes far from Center Avenue. Success – and survival – meant luring them anew each day.
The Downtown Moorhead Master Plan adopted by the city council four years ago envisioned something new: people working, shopping and playing in the heart of the traditional city … then retiring to homes right there in the district. The dream: To add 500 living units to the downtown district in the next five years.
That goal was surpassed this year, with another 12 months to go. Bartram and his companies, MBA Architects and Sterling Development, are responsible for 438 of them.
“Downtowns don’t come alive without people living in them. It’s critical,” he observes. “Moorhead is in a great position to create a living, breathing community to support the businesses that will be drawn downtown to employ and provide services to them.”
Bartram and his partners began adding homes to that neighborhood long before the “new” downtown began to take shape. Twenty years ago, he stepped across the Main Avenue bridge from his headquarters in Fargo to reimagine the Kassenborg Block, the oldest original building in downtown Moorhead. That venerable structure, built in 1898, eventually anchored six residential and mixed-use buildings, most constructed on grounds where unsalvageable structures (including Ralph’s Bar) had stood.
Those condominiums and apartments (which he since has sold) convinced him that Moorhead was viable for development. “We were cautious at first,” the 1982 North Dakota State University graduate says. “There were a lot of questions – some of them ours. We wanted to prove there was demand. We’d do one, fill it, and then move on to the next project.”
The outcome, he says, was positive from the first. And he moved on. Next: Reinventing the Simon Warehouse on Center Avenue at 11th Street. Its 65 units quickly filled. Next came the 9Thirteen Lofts and Block 37 with a total of 63 apartments just west of Hornbacher’s.
Now Bartram is involved in the three highest-profile residential developments in the heart of downtown. After purchasing the century-old Fairmont Creamery and adjacent modern apartments from Eventide Senior Living in 2021, he tore down the newer structure and set about constructing 69 apartments in a brand-new structure; the “for rent” signs have just been posted. The company has now turned to the historic Fairmont building, where much larger residential units are planned.
Those driving Center Avenue are already familiar with the first floor of his 650 Block at the corner of Seventh Street. The first of two four-story buildings is taking shape now. The ground floor will accommodate a much larger Downtown Chiropractic, which plans to add exercise facilities and other services. Next door, The Title Team (Clay County Abstract) will move from its present office across the street in the FM Center. A total of 121 apartments are planned in the upper stories and adjacent structure.
And then there’s the FM Center. Bartram purchased the top five floors of the building several years ago, but only in recent months acquired the first and second floors when US Bank closed its Moorhead branch. “I haven’t firmed up my plans yet,” he told the Extra in early November. “I needed to own the whole building to get historic preservation tax credits, but that’s still up in the air.”
The former Frederick Martin Hotel, an office building since it closed in 1972, is the only example of true Mid-Mod architecture remaining in Moorhead, he says. The request to be part of the historic program, however, is complicated by 52 years of extensive modifications inside. “Not much of the historic finish remains,” Bartram admits.
In the meantime, he’s not quietly biding his time. Some of the professional offices that rented on its upper floors remain on a month-to-month basis. The city of Moorhead has rented three floors to house civic offices while City Hall is remodeled.
The developer, also responsible for the Armory Event Center and Armory Annex next to the Simon Warehouse Lofts, has his eye on other properties as well. At this point, though, he’s not ready to share what’s been percolating in the back of his mind.
“The rental market is very good in Moorhead,” the Surrey, North Dakota, native observes. “Our projects have done very well. They’re typically something like 97% full.”
The secret, he says, is that his companies manage their buildings themselves. “We have the whole range of options for people at every stage of their lives, from college students up to retired and empty nesters.” The Fairmont complex, for example, will have leases ranging from $850 to $2,900 and units with as many as three bedrooms.
“We have learned what renters want,” he continues. “Enclosed parking, for one thing. Washers and dryers in every apartment. All of the utilities included in their rent. On the other hand, community rooms and some of the other amenities that have been added in other newer buildings don’t seem to be getting used the way landlords assumed they would be.”
Bartram has been involved in designing and building Fargo-Moorhead landmarks since graduating from NDSU’s architecture program. He joined the architectural firm he now heads in 1980, becoming a partner in 1987. He and the late Bob Mutchler built an architecture and engineering firm that pioneered as well in construction management.
The firm had done projects in Moorhead during the 1980s and 1990s, including several for Eventide and Concordia College. Among its credits: the Olson Forum and the Olson Skyway traversing Eighth Street South. It renovated the old American Legion on First Avenue North in the early ‘90s, anticipating the city convention center proposal that ultimately failed. But it planted the seed.
Today his attention is sharply focused on the Minnesota side of the river. “It’s very difficult now to make the numbers for projects in downtown Fargo,” he observes. “It’s much more work, especially when you have to clean up existing sites first. Getting incentives there has gotten more difficult.”
The North Dakota city’s Renaissance Zone offers only five years of possible tax exemptions, he says, while Moorhead’s program provides 15 years of decreasing credits. “Moorhead has a really good program. Fifteen years gives you time to get a project on its feet while it’s weaning you off the incentives.
“The approval process here is cleaner and quicker. Working through what you need in Fargo — rezoning, Renaissasance Zone approval, TIF financing – consumes a lot of time. As the developer, you don’t know if you even have a project for a year. In Moorhead, that’s six to eight weeks.”
Bartram has no plans at the moment to get more involved on the Center Mall site itself: “For one thing, we’re probably better suited to renovating existing buildings.” But he’s confident that Moorhead’s downtown dreams will blossom in coming years.
“You don’t want to build too much too soon and flood the market,” he cautions. “Market conditions will have an effect, too; there’s a huge difference between 3% and 7%.
“But please be patient. Moving slowly doesn’t mean it’s not coming.”