“Unless we had someone sit outside 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the last 5 years, asking each person who they are, where they live, how much they make, etc. there's just no way we could have understood our visitors as deeply as with Placer. Being awarded a $100K grant has totally changed the scope of what we’ll be doing this year.” 

~ Alexander Weber, President and CEO, Grand Forks Downtown Development Association  

The Challenge

Situated along the Red River, the city of Grand Forks, ND is a vibrant town of 60k people. Next to the river, and part of the Downtown District, is the Town Square, which the City of Grand Forks decided to build as an all season public gathering space following the flood of 1997. Since its building in October of 2000, the space had fallen into disrepair, while continuing to hold community and regional events like farmer markets, with potential for 200k visitors to pass through the Town Square and the downtown area on a given weekend.

The Grand Forks Downtown Development Association (GFDDA) knew that there was an opportunity to create a true community gathering space by revitalizing the town square. But, without data, they had trouble attracting grants to do so. They also struggled attracting national retailers like Starbucks, whom they had approached previously, with no success. Then, a grant came to their attention. Sponsored by a national retailer, the grant was intended to help communities nationwide work on impact projects for their area, but required very specific details about who used the space, from income to demographics, education, ethnicity, and more. How could they source such detailed data?

The Solution

Normally, detailed demographic information like household income, population ages, and military/veteran status would be near impossible for GFDDA to know, even with advanced people counting systems around the square. However, Alexander Weber, President and CEO of the GFDDA, knew he could use data from Placer to make a convincing case for the $100k grant.

With Placer, Alexander could provide the specific demographics of the population that the project would impact, showing that lower income households would see significant benefit.  

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The data also helped GFDDA strengthen the case for adding a national coffee retailer, which had been a long-term goal. Knowing details like how many businesses were downtown, total number of employees, and traffic patterns for the area helped the retailer to seriously consider the opportunity.  

Learn more about Vehicle Traffic Volume in Area Analysis

The Outcome

With Placer’s detailed demographic insights, and objective data showing how a revitalized town square would help lower income families, the GFDDA was awarded a $100K in grant funding. The money was used for updated painting, outdoor musical instruments, workout equipment, custom fire pits, updated lighting, seating, and more. In addition, downtown Grand Forks landed its first national coffee franchise, with projected completion in 2024.  

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