The Prairie Den, a coworking and events space in downtown Fargo facilitated by Emerging Prairie, has outgrown the current space at 122 1⁄2 North Broadway. As Emerging Prairie continues to connect and celebrate the region’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem, the Prairie Den will move to Downtown Fargo’s Black Building to serve more community members.
“We’re excited. This move is only necessary due to the success of our events, initiatives and because Prairie Den is more popular than ever,” said Brian Carroll, Director of Operations for Emerging Prairie. “This move is an indicator that entrepreneurs, startups and Downtown Fargo are all flourishing.”
The new Prairie Den home will have a total of 7,809 square feet – a 30% increase in square footage. It will also include six rentable office pods, two conference rooms, two classrooms and two phone booths for working and collaboration space. This allows for a much-needed increase of the Prairie Den’s coworking capacity, which is critical to many local entrepreneurs and startups.
“People are going to love the new space. As much as we love our current Prairie Den – having a new space built for us with new amenities and an elevator will be a huge upgrade for our Prairie Den community,” shared Jordan Jost, Prairie Den Administrator. “The Prairie Den currently has 92 active members and we expect that to grow rapidly over the next few years.”
The classrooms in the Prairie Den will be the future home for the Emerging Digital Academy, North Dakota’s first software engineering boot camp. The academy’s mission is to help solve North Dakota’s technology skills gap by graduating dozens each year to become software engineers. Emerging Digital Academy will host its first class in April of 2020.
The new space will also host the Emerging Prairie team, which has grown significantly in recent months. Greg Tehven, Emerging Prairie’s Co-Founder and Executive Director, feels the Black Building is a great place for events and new projects to continue to evolve. “We love the Black Building. We love downtown–and to have this opportunity so close to our current home? It’s the perfect new home.”
At the center of this move is the historic Black Building. Built in 1930, the Black Building is an 8-story art deco structure born of merchant George M. Black’s belief in the future of Fargo. T.F. Powers & Co. (the construction company) called the Black Building its “masterpiece”.
The move will take place late Summer of this year.
