Moorhead celebrates new $40 million library as big bet to revitalize downtown
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The City of Moorhead celebrated the grand opening of its new $40 million library this past weekend. Named “The Loop,” the library is the city’s latest attempt at revitalizing its downtown, which borders Fargo.
The library has an indoor walking loop, an entrepreneurship center and a playground. The library was largely funded by a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in years prior.
Other sponsors helped with the funding, and U.S. Senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar also helped secure $1 million in congressional funds. Smith attended the ribbon-cutting event Saturday, as did a representative for Klobuchar.
“What I see here is a community that is reclaiming its downtown,” Smith said. “This is a place for everybody to be welcome, to be able to enjoy the arts and the community that is so much and so important to this place.”
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It’s been a struggle to get people to stick around Moorhead’s downtown with the bigger city of Fargo as a neighbor. In the 70s, the city tore down swaths of its downtown in favor of a mall.
However, as the years passed, the mall didn’t do much to garner many downtown visitors, and eventually, it had to close.
“There weren't a lot of people that were using it anymore; it was dark when you went in,” Moorhead Mayor Shelly Carlson said. “And it wasn't actually great for walking.”
The new library now stands where the mall once did. This time, Carlson said, city leadership hopes more businesses will establish themselves around the library to capitalize on the visitors.
“That's what excites me the most — not just what the space is today, but what it can become,” Carlson said at the ribbon-cutting event. “The connections that will happen here, the ideas that will take shape, the businesses that will start right here and grow into something really meaningful.”
At the ribbon-cutting event, a group of children helped carry the last remaining books from the old library to the new one. It’s part of a longstanding “book brigade” Moorhead tradition.
Once the event wrapped up, attendees scattered around the library’s two floors to explore its different amenities. Some shared excitement about having a place to gather during the harsh winters.
“With our cold winters, it's nice to have an indoor playground here, it’s nice to have a walking area,” Friends of the Moorhead Library board member John Benson said. “We have winter sometimes for six months a year, so it's nice to have a safe space for walking here.”
