Main Street Minute: Ace Hardware and the Cowan Building | Video

Retha Colclasure | 1/28/2013

A long-awaited renovation is beginning in a downtown Bismarck building, and one business owner is adding a new location. More than a dozen hardware stores have opened in Bismarck since Jeff Hinz opened Ace Hardware. While many of them have come and gone, Ace Hardware has stuck around. Now, Hinz is planning to open a second location in north Bismarck at the corner of 43rd and Highway 83.

Hinz says while there are big box stores in the area, his store will fill a void. "Our job is the odd stuff you can`t find at other place or if it`s difficult to put together. If an item can be put in a package and bar coded, every store will have it. If it`s something hard to deal with, messy or complicated, has to be assembled. or is in bulk. or has to be delivered, that`s us."

Hinz says the new store will be bigger than the south location. It will also have a complete gourmet kitchen store.

A massive renovation of the Cowan Building in downtown Bismarck is underway. Developer Loran Galpin says the five story building has always had opportunity, but needed expensive structural work held development back. Right now, asbestos abatement is underway on the top floors and work will soon begin to fill in part of the building that is under the sidewalk.

"It`s obstacles are great but the opportunities are also exceptional. So we`re hoping in the next few weeks you should see a lot of activity that will start to fill a lot of this in, and we`ll be starting to tear into the insides of this building," Galpin said.
The building is only about 25 feet wide, but has a total of about 20,000 square feet. We`ll take a more in-depth look at what`s going on in the Cowan building tomorrow night on Inside Business.

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