The Fournet Building in downtown Crookston is almost ready to be open for the public and tours after nearly five years of construction. Building owner and general contractor Jeff Evers reported that the second and third-floor office areas are mostly complete and is looking to gain a Certificate of Occupancy for the second floor to move employees into the building.
The building is a three-floor project that has been in development since 2018 that multiple organizations in downtown Crookston will use. The first floor will be a storefront for new businesses to rent and lease, similar to the Valley Tech Park by the University of Minnesota Crookston. “On the corner of it, where you rent one office, someone can come in, and they have a small business and don’t want a whole storefront, but they want a good location, nice office, and conference room they can use. So, where the Public Defenders are now on the main floor’s corner, behind the lobby, I’d like to make it so you can rent one of the offices and get to use one of the conference rooms to set up their business and get to have their business name on the corner of the building so people would know where you’re at. It’s like what Valley Tech Park and CHEDA do already, instead its downtown version of that,” Building owner and general contractor Jeff Evers explained. “With that storefront, it’s pretty visible, and I think the price would be about $399 to $599, including all of the utilities to make it affordable, or someone can have their own business with all those amenities. So, that’s coming. I’d say by spring. We’d have an Open House on the corner just for that space. I’m excited about that. It’s a good opportunity and a creative way to do what Valley Tech Park is doing.” The Tri-Valley Opportunity Council occupies the building’s second floor, and the State of Minnesota will occupy the third floor for the Public Defenders. Last summer, the building had added an elevator and was nearing completion of the second floor. Now, nearly all the office rooms on the second and third floors have been completed, and some Tri-Valley employees have moved into the building.
Since the summer, the building has installed a new double-sided elevator, completed the flooring in the atrium and many of the offices on the second floor, added furniture and desks to the conference and employee break rooms, a safety rail for the railing on the third floor’s walkway and carpeting to the main lobby. While most of the second floor has been completed, Evers says there are still some things they need to finish on both the second and third floors, but the third still has much more work to complete. “What we’ve got left is some trimming to do in the atrium and other random things on the second floor and a little bit of trim on the third floor. The lobby’s a lot further along. It’s nearly complete,” Jeff Evers explained. “We’re on hold on the third-floor ballroom for right now, and we’ll see how that works out. It’s not sheet-rocked yet. But as far as construction on the third floor, there’s not much. There’s more trimming, and some lights have to be put in, but it’s almost complete.”
With the latest additions made to the building, Evers has reached out to the City’s Building Inspector, Greg Hefta, for a Certificate of Occupancy to allow the Tri-Valley Opportunity Council to begin moving all of their employees to the new building, which he believes will be received to let them begin moving in soon. Along with the employees, Evers has also reached out to the Polk County Historical Society to try and set up tours for the public in the summer. “I’m trying to get going with the Historical Society, and we’re trying to plan that for this summer, but there’s a lot of planning to get that to happen. We’ve already had some discussions that we need to keep going with that. I hope we can get something going this summer and have some kind of an Open House where people can come where we’ll have it be one day or have it be more scheduled. We definitely want it to be open, so people can see the Grand Staircase and stuff that was built over a hundred years ago.”
Pictures of the building can be seen below-
