Williston development continues to ease the housing crunch

A blighted trailer park can become a master planned oil industry housing complex in a vision offered to the City of Williston by Mike Marcil of the Marcil Group of Fargo. "We tend to think onesies-twosies in North Dakota, when we should be thinking master planned developments," Marcil said Tuesday. The Williston City Commission Tuesday night took the first step toward making Marcil's vision a reality, by agreeing to negotiate a purchase agreement on 17.7 acres of the former Cimarron Trailer Park. The commission set a deadline of June 20 for the negotiations. The deal is contingent on the construction of at least two more 36-plex apartment buildings like the one opening this month in Marcil's Bakken Heights, bringing to 144 the total number of units through this phase of the project. "We got the idea because we built a senior living facility just like this in Fargo," Marcil said, but he sees the concept as totally adaptable to the unique needs of oil service companies who more and more are having to provide housing as an incentive to attract workers. Ultimately, Marcil envisions up to 5 phases and a total of as many as 360 apartments, including a public community center including food services, recreation, entertainment and social spaces, to name but a few amenities. These would be luxury apartments, fully furnished, with maid service. His vision would cater exclusively to the needs of oil field service companies willing to fix the costs of housing for their workers by signing master leases of five years. "It's a city within a city. Not a sequestered city, but an industry supported city." Such a concept is not unprecedented. Marcil points out that oil companies are accustomed to moving into remote areas in other parts of the world and literally raising cities out of sand. The beauty of Marcil's plan, as he envisions it, is that industry bears much of the burden for helping to develop housing, instead of local or state government. "The industry needs to be financially committed to those units in order for us to make the investment," he said. In exchange, he would like to see the state offer a tax credit for energy service companies who partner on projects that help expand the stock of housing in North Dakota. He believes such a project will relieve the inflationary stress on the local housing market and workers who aren't making oil field wages, by meeting a pent up demand. "This is Texas-style vision. We're talking about fundamentally changing the landscape and economy of western North Dakota," Marcil said. "We can't do this piece-meal." The purchase price is $156,477, which is equal to the price per square foot agreed upon for the purchase of Sand Creek Trailer Park last year. Marcil estimates the cost of development of the next two 36-plex apartments at up to $6 million. He would remove the old unusable infrastructure in the old trailer park and install new utilities, water, sewer and pavement. The sale of the land is contingent upon the project qualifying for tax increment financing. Tax increment financing is not a tax exemption, however the taxes paid on the property would go toward improvement on the site for a limited period of time. Once the improvements are paid off, local government entities would begin receiving much greater revenues than they would have without the project. The property is generating no tax income now. The commission agreed to negotiate the final terms of the agreement by June 20, which may include a limited amount of tax increment financing. The commission also agreed to request proposals from other companies for the development of the remaining 60 acres of the Cimarron Trailer Park, with specific details of the request to be ironed out by the June 24 commission meeting. "Since Build Williston Day we've had a great deal of interest from developers. Hopefully this RFP will provide for a mix of housing solutions for the community," said Tom Rolfstad, economic development director.