Cavendish Farms project top news story of 2024

Jan. 1—JAMESTOWN — Cavendish Farms planning nearly $150 million in expansion and improvements at its Jamestown potato facility is the top news story for the Jamestown area in 2024 as selected by the news staff of The Jamestown Sun.

The following are the top 10 stories of the year as selected by Sun staff.

Cavendish Farms is

planning to expand and make improvements

to its Jamestown potato plant.

Cavendish plans to break ground in the spring on a $100 million expansion. The expansion includes replacing the fryer, expanding the building by 55 feet, and providing a better working environment and storage at the facility, Agweek reported.

The expansion will increase capacity from 410 million pounds of production annually to 450 million pounds.

Cavendish is also planning a $15 million packaging expansion and a $30 million wastewater treatment plant. The wastewater treatment plant will move the plant’s wastewater out of the purview of the city of Jamestown and onto Cavendish itself, Agweek reported.

The Anne Carlsen Center officially opened its

Ballantyne Berg Campus in southwest Jamestown

in the spring.

The new campus is located east of Jamestown Regional Medical Center and on the south side of Interstate 94.

The cost of the new facility was $59 million.

The new residential space provides a place for 34 children to live. The new facility also houses the Anne Carlsen Center for Learning, a fully accredited private school that serves up to 40 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

The campus also offers recreational areas designed to facilitate social interaction, peer engagement and physical activities for individuals, families and staff. The recreational areas include a 20-by-40-foot warm water therapy pool with movable floor depth, a fully accessible and inclusive outdoor playground and a built-in track connecting all areas of the campus for year-round access. An indoor sensory gym and playground offers a structured environment for the development of sensory, communication and motor skills.

A Jamestown police officer

shot and killed a man

early morning on Dec. 3 in the parking lot behind Fred’s Den.

Sgt. Cory Beckman, a five-year veteran of the Jamestown Police Department, shot Devin Quinn Fontenot, 27, Jamestown, after he responded to a report of a man armed with a gun and a knife. Fontenot died from injuries he sustained from gunfire.

Fontenot refused to comply with an order to drop his weapon, jeopardizing the safety of Beckman and others, according to Scott Edinger, Jamestown chief of police.

According to police, the Stutsman County Communications Center received a 911 call at 1:17 a.m. Dec. 3 of a male armed with a gun and a knife standing in the parking lot behind Fred’s Den. The caller reported the male had been involved in a physical altercation inside the bar and had been removed.

As officers responded, the 911 caller reported a man was shooting at a building, firing many rounds. When the first officer arrived on the scene, the man later identified as Fontenot was still firing rounds in the parking lot.

After Fontenot was shot, officers rendered first aid to him and he was transported to Jamestown Regional Medical Center, where he died from his injuries.

The use of deadly force by a Jamestown police officer was justified when he shot and killed a man early Dec. 3 in the parking lot behind Fred’s Den, according to Stutsman County State’s Attorney Fritz Fremgen.

Fremgen declined to pursue any charges against Beckman.

The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation investigated the officer-involved shooting. Those findings were forwarded to Fremgen for further review.

The Jamestown Civic Center was

named the host site for a state girls basketball tournament

through 2031.

The Jamestown Civic Center will host the North Dakota Division B Girls Basketball State Tournament in March 2025. After that, the girls’ tournaments will alternate between Division A and Division B on a two-year rotation.

The Civic Center hosted the Division B Girls Basketball State Tournament in March 2024, selling 4,700 tickets for the championship game, which was near the capacity of the Civic Center, said Pam Fosse, director. In addition, concession stands in the Civic Center brought in about $55,000 during the three-day tournament.

The North Dakota Division B Girls Basketball State Tournament

brought in over $1.4 million of economic impact

to Jamestown, Fosse said.

Several improvements were made in 2024

to the Civic Center to host the state tournaments, including installing a new sound system, better courtside seating for the athletes and installing 22 athletic lockers. The improvements were made at the Civic Center after the city of Jamestown told the North Dakota High School Activities Association that it was willing to make upgrades to the facility so it could be named a host site for state basketball tournaments.

The Jamestown City Council approved on Oct. 7 providing a two-year notice to the Stutsman County Commission that the city of Jamestown will

withdraw from the memorandum of agreement

to provide joint library services.

The notice means the city would officially withdraw from the memorandum of agreement on Feb. 28, 2027. The city of Jamestown and Stutsman County will still have two years to discuss the memorandum of agreement and procedures.

The city of Jamestown and Stutsman County have provided joint library services under the agreement after voters approved a measure in 2008 to combine them.

The City Council and the Stutsman County Commission approved one-year extensions to the memorandum of agreement for the past three years. The agreement would have automatically extended another five years in March if the city or Stutsman County didn’t provide a notice of intent to withdraw.

Central Sales Inc. employees and local officials broke ground on its location for a new commercial implement dealership, marking an expansion of the company.

The

new Central Sales commercial implement dealership

will be located at 1700 20th St. SW, east of the new Anne Carlsen Center location and just south of Interstate 94.

Central Sales sells Massey Ferguson tractors, Gleaner combines, White Planters, Sunflower tillage and Bobcat among other items.

The estimated cost of the project is about $13.5 million. The project is expected to be complete in about a year.

The new location will also feature North Dakota’s tallest flagpole at 150 feet that holds a 30-by-60-foot American flag.

Cash Wise Foods completed significant improvements to the store in 2024.

The project

began in August 2023 with the construction of a new fuel center, adding convenience for guests. The fuel center opened last fall.

The remodel project also included doubling the size of the liquor store to accommodate a significantly larger assortment and the addition of a new Caribou Coffee with in-store seating, drive-thru and order-ahead capabilities.

Other upgrades to the store included expanded and enhanced produce, meat, deli, bakery and center store departments. The store’s exterior underwent a refresh including a new parking lot and updated signage.

In addition, Ace Hardware was expanded to the east end of the shopping campus. The hardware store opened in the spring.

Construction of

Victory Christian School’s new addition is on schedule

.

The addition is on the north side of Victory Christian School where its playground was formerly located. The addition connects to the existing school building. The playground was relocated west of the current facility.

Victory Christian School

launched its $5 million “Growing Together” capital campaig

n in April for the construction of a new addition with a goal of starting a high school.

Victory Christian School plans to add its first class for Victory Christian High School in fall 2025. A new grade will be added each year starting in 2025 with the addition of 12th grade in 2028.

Victory Christian School’s goal is to build a school campus for prekindergarten through 12th grade and to have enough space for two classrooms per grade, according to the school’s pamphlet of the project.

The

new Dairy Queen opened

this summer in Jamestown.

The new Dairy Queen is 3,000 square feet and is the

largest the franchise would allow

to be built. It can seat 60 people.

The drive-thru has two lanes and two windows and can fit around 20 vehicles. The parking lot can also fit more vehicles than the previous location.

The new Dairy Queen also offers breakfast items.

The State Historical Society of North Dakota Foundation received a

donation of more than $5.8 million

on Sept. 18 from the estate of Sebastian George Spangler on behalf of the Stutsman County Courthouse Historic Site.

The $5.8 million gift is the largest donation in the history of the State Historical Society of North Dakota Foundation.

Spangler, 82, Jamestown, passed away in December 2023. He farmed and raised cattle in the Jamestown area in addition to operating an antique business.

The benefit of Spangler’s gift will be seen for a very long time at the 1883 Stutsman County Courthouse, according to Dale Lennon, executive director of the State Historical Society of North Dakota Foundation.

“What we will be able to do with this gift is going to be incredible for the Stutsman County Courthouse,” he said. “We are going to have some of it set aside for special projects, projects that need to be completed immediately. That can … make this a place that’s a destination for people driving through the state of North Dakota and North Dakotans themselves coming to see the history, the birthplace of North Dakota statehood.”

Other top stories for 2024 for the Jamestown area include:

*

Bob Toso resigning from his position

on the Jamestown City Council on Aug. 16, about two months after he was elected to serve his first term on the council. The Jamestown City Council

appointed Pam Phillips to fill the vacant seat

on the council on Oct. 7. The seat is a four-year term that expires in June 2028. Toso was the leading vote-getter in a race to fill three positions on the City Council in June. Incumbents Brian Kamlitz and David Schloegel were returned by the voters to their seats. Phillips also ran for a seat. Phillips was fourth in the June race with 847 votes or about 350 votes less than those elected to the council.

* Jamestown Regional Airport’s runway rehabilitation project.

The runway rehabilitation project

— primarily a mill and overlay project — was completed during the summer at Jamestown Regional Airport. The more than $4 million project also included crack and joint repair in the concrete. Work was also completed on the airport’s airfield electrical project that included replacing every light and sign on the airfield and upgrading and changing them to LED fixtures. The airfield electrical project project also includes getting all new electrical wires and regulators.

* The Jamestown Public School District is

looking at options

to address declining future enrollment and facility needs. The district would also retire multiple elementary schools if a referendum is brought forward and approved by voters for construction of a new elementary school. The four options to address declining future enrollment and facility needs are: staying with the status quo, retiring one building that has one classroom for each grade in K-5, retiring two buildings and constructing an elementary school or retiring three buildings and building an elementary school.

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