The Bismarck City Commission has approved contracts with Kadrmas, Lee & Jackson Inc. to design facilities at the Northern Plains Commerce Centre.

At Tuesday's meeting of the commission, city administrator Bill Wocken said that with most of the transloading facility's infrastructure in place, it is time for planning and design of the new transload-warehouse facility and phase two of the railroad design.

"We've done some predesign and some soul searching as far as the improvement of that design," Wocken said, "and we feel we're at the point for the formal design of this important facility for the Northern Plains Commerce Centre."

KLJ will be asked to design a 48,000-square-foot transload-warehouse facility, Wocken said, and also likely will be asked to provide an alternative that will add one or two additional storage bays.

"We don't want to be constructing a building that will be sitting vacant," Wocken said, "and believe that if we get reasonable prices this will be the right size for the market at this point."

But the city also doesn't want a warehouse that won't meet possible demand, so the building is to be designed so it can be expanded.

Currently, the NPCC has a tenant in Bobcat, which is expected to start shipping in the near future from its facility. Saskcan Pulse Trading, an agribusiness, has plans to build a warehouse of its own at the NPCC.

Besides Bobcat and Saskcan, negotiations have been ongoing with three other businesses, Wocken said.

"But until we have freight rates, there's not much more we can do,"Wocken said. "Those freight rates are partially dependent on what it will cost to build the warehouse and add the tracks."

Preliminary estimates for the transload-warehouse facility are in the neighborhood of $4 million. The facility will include offices and docking bays. The city will pay KLJ $281,600 for its design services for the warehouse facility.

With the completion of the Yegen Road reconstruction and the interior roads of the NPCC, along with the closure of Airway Avenue adjacent the center, the second phase of the rail project is ready to begin. Some 8,400 lineal feet of track will be laid, with four turnouts. KLJ will receive $142,000 for the phase two rail design.

The city hopes to begin construction of the transload-warehouse facility as early as conditions permit next spring, Wocken said. With the dirt work already complete for the rail, the track could start going in yet this winter.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarck-tribune.com.)