The vision: An Initial Nudge
"The funny thing is when Fargo Brewing started in 2010, I didn't know any of the owners. I sent them an email just saying that we should consider combining venues like we are here. At the time, they kind of dismissed me and the idea, but then here we are now. At some point later, we started doing events with them in the parking lot and we started handling their anniversary parties that they would have every year in the parking lot. In 2019, I came on board as a partner and bought out two of the founders. At that point, we immediately talked about how we could redevelop the building." - Jade Nielsen, founder & president, Jade Presents
Laying Out The Hall
"When we first started looking at renovating the building, we had a very different initial
idea on where people would come in. We worked with three different architects and we ended up working with Chris Hawley on it. He is somebody that has renovated old buildings and he owns buildings that have been renovated as well. So he looks at a space and wonders how can we lay it out differently. Chris kind of gravitated to the natural light on the south side of the building. In creating the patio on the south side, we had always kind of written it off because of the railroad tracks. Once you clean it up with grass and a perimeter fence, it's going to be a great private little space. From there, we knew we had to move the grain room, but we also didn't want to have to change any plumbing or the production area. For the event space, we didn't know initially what we were going to do with it because it used to be offices. I had initially had the idea of doing a barbershop and a tattoo shop in here
too. Unfortunately, the tattoo shop that was going to come in opted to open in Moorhead. I think it was initially planned to have a barbershop, tattoo shop, coffee shop, food vendor and a taproom venue. So we really have not deviated from what we planned outside of the tattoo shop. We haven't filled the coffee shop, but part of that is because we're being incredibly picky about what sort of shop we want in there." - Jade Nielsen
What The Space Means For Jade Presents
"For us at JP, we've always wanted to develop more spaces. We're involved in The Sanctuary, Bluestem and The Fargo Theatre, but we don't own those venues. The idea of being able to cultivate something here with the brewery folks just seemed like a good match." - Jade Nielsen
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