Jul. 7—DICKINSON — The Dickinson City Commission held its regular biweekly meeting Wednesday, which was postponed by one day from its usually scheduled Tuesday time due to the long holiday weekend. During the meeting, a representative from Gooseneck Implement addressed the commissioners with his ideas for building a much larger facility just outside of town.

Gooseneck Implement is a farm equipment dealer that sells and services John Deere products. In 1974, it was founded in Kenmare, North Dakota, by Kevin Borud. By 2018, it expanded to 13 locations, including Dickinson, with the acquisition of Dakota Farm Equipment. Tom Pearson addressed the commission with plans for an expansion of his company's Dickinson facility.

"We are looking at building a new facility in your community, about an $8 to $9 million investment to bring in a brand new shop and retail outlet," Pearson said. "We are very proactive in keeping our buildings very efficient for the changing industry, with equipment getting so large. As you can see we have built nine different facilities in the last 15 years. We are probably doing two this year, one in Dickinson and one in Bowman."

He explained the Elgin facility was the first to be replaced after it was destroyed in a fire. The fire was started by former volunteer firefighter John Iszler, who later pled guilty to arson charges and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Pearson offered further details on the new Dickinson facility.

"That's a 68,000-square foot building we'll be putting in there, with an 18,000-square foot cold storage building on the north side," he said. "This is going to sit on roughly 27 acres. We'll need to move about 200,000 cubic yards of dirt. We want to get started this month. We're getting bids soon."

He requested that the City help Gooseneck hook into Dickinson water and sewer system.

"We're willing to pledge $350,000 toward that. That is what it would cost for us to do it. We have done it before, where we put our own fire suppression systems and our own sewers. But we prefer to get the city's services," he said.

Scott Schneider, of Apex Engineering, said that because this location is outside city limits, the City of Dickinson would have to annex that territory in order to provide services. He explained one of the options to make that happen.

"None of this is inexpensive. You have to get across the interstate twice: once with water, once with sewer. And those estimates are in the ballpark of 1.7 to 1.9 million using today's construction dollars," Schneider said.

The possibility of Gooseneck connecting to the Dickinson rural water system was also discussed.

During an

interview

with The Dickinson Press in December, General Manager Alicia Hess said she's thrilled about the expansion.

"This new investment will allow for many improvements such as better efficiencies amongst the departments, improved parts storage and increased space for parts availability, as well as a safer work environment for the Gooseneck employees. We're excited to bring a new location to the Dickinson Community. This opportunity will give our customers a state of the art facility for service, parts and sales," Hess said.