Bemidji Planning Director Previews Key Projects for 2026 Construction Season

Bemidji Planning Director Jamin Carlson stepped through the city's busiest development slate in recent memory during a March 9 preview of the Planning Board's March meeting agenda, walking through more than a dozen active commercial and infrastructure projects spread across the city heading into the 2026 construction season.

The department's workload comes into sharper focus through its Site Analyst and Enforcement Activities report submitted to the Planning Board in August 2025, which logged 182 permit and license actions as of August 7 of that year. Of those, 71 were site plan reviews or zoning verification letters, 34 covered animals, home occupation, fence, and land use permits, and 11 involved storage containers or semi-trailer permits.

The project list Carlson oversees spans nearly every corner of Bemidji. On Paul Bunyan Drive NW alone, two major projects sit at different stages: 7 Brew Bemidji had its pylon sign installed, with landscape survivability review, utility as-builts, and final wrap-up still pending, while a Dairy Queen project had been approved but was waiting on the developer to finalize plans and timelines. An AT&T tower on Bardwell Drive NW had completed site plan review and moved into active construction, as had Battery Warehouse Inc. on Gillette Drive, where a development agreement was signed before crews broke ground.

The Starbucks South location on Shevlin Avenue opened for business, though planning staff still needed to complete a landscape survivability review and the developer had not yet submitted required as-builts. Across town at the South Shore, The Boardwalk project reached near-completion, with concrete installed in June 2025, but a trash and wood ash disposal enclosure had not been placed as of August 6, 2025.

The UPS MDC Expansion at Industrial Park Drive SE finished construction and was awaiting a landscape survivability review scheduled for fall 2025. The Westridge Redevelopment on Paul Bunyan Drive had its conditional use permit issued and plan review completed, with construction underway. Border States at Cooperative Court and Beltrami County Solid Waste at Fern Street NW were both actively under construction following completed site plan reviews and permit approvals.

Two Beltrami County government projects featured prominently in the department's August report. The Beltrami County Adult Corrections Center on Pioneer Street SE had its development agreement completed and signed, with construction underway. The Beltrami County Solid Waste facility on Fern Street NW also held an approved land use permit with work in progress.

At Bemidji Storage on Carr Lake Road, the project had reopened with a development agreement signed, but the developer had not yet started work. A T-Hangar on Moberg Drive NW completed its site plan review back on April 8, 2024, with dirt work finished before the end of the 2024 construction season, leaving structural construction as the next phase.

Gracewin Cooperative represented perhaps the most unresolved entry on the list: the developer requested a 12-month extension to meet substantial start requirements, and according to the August 2025 report, had secured the necessary reservations, with the intended next step not fully captured in available documents.

The project statuses above reflect the department's August 2025 reporting and may have advanced since then. Carlson's March 9 preview to the Planning Board represents the city's current look ahead, with the 2026 construction season now underway.