Board approves Jamestown Tourism funding request to help recruit visitors

Nov. 13—JAMESTOWN — The Jamestown/Stutsman Development Corp. Board of Directors unanimously approved on Tuesday, Nov. 12, a $125,000 request from Jamestown Tourism to help tourism sites, events and recreational entities recruit visitors to the area.

If approved by the Jamestown City Council and Stutsman County Commission, the city of Jamestown's share will be $100,000 while the county's share will be $25,000.

Warren Abrahamson, marketing manager for Jamestown Tourism, told the JSDC board about the organization's marketing efforts and the impact of that work.

For this year, Abrahamson said Jamestown Tourism had four goals — increase awareness about Jamestown as a destination, drive website traffic, engage targeted audiences and boost regional traffic.

"We kind of know who is interested in what Jamestown has and we wanted to center our focus (on) our digital campaign, focus on those specific targets, such as family, history seekers, and then boost regional traffic," he said. "We're finding that a lot of Jamestown visitors are day trippers, so in that 100-mile radius, they can pop over to Jamestown and enjoy what we have over here before going back home."

He said traffic to Jamestown Tourism's website increased significantly this year.

"Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 7, we saw a 496% increase," he said. "Overall website traffic increased 809% between April and July specifically, which is when we get a lot of our campaigns."

Abrahamson said Jamestown Tourism's biggest campaign was with Noble Studios, which works with destination marketing organizations and specializes in visitor traffic. He said a social media marketing campaign with Noble Studios garnered more than 3.95 million impressions, reached over 948,000 users and had more than 35,800 link clicks from April 1 to July 31.

From April 1 to July 31, a Noble Studios campaign using Google display and discovery ads garnered over 8.07 million impressions and more than 143,300 clicks, Abrahamson said.

From Memorial Day through Labor Day, the Frontier Village in Jamestown had about 142,000 visitors in 2023 and over 174,000 in 2024, said Emily Bivens, executive director of the Jamestown Area Chamber of Commerce and Jamestown Tourism.

She said occupancy taxable sales were up 14% from 2023 to 2024 and restaurant and lodging taxes were up little over 7%.

The JSDC board unanimously approved a Flex PACE interest buydown in an amount up to about $51,340 for Buffalo City Offices LLC.

If approved by the Jamestown City Council and Stutsman County Commission, the city's share will be more than $41,000 with the county's share being over $10,200.

Buffalo City Offices will use the funds to purchase and renovate a building at 312 2nd Ave. SW in Jamestown to make space for Center Counseling.

Brita Goss, a co-owner of Buffalo City Offices, said she opened a satellite branch in Jamestown and has been providing counseling services since June 1.

She said Center Counseling recently hired another counselor and expects to have up to four counselors. She said there is a need in the community for quality Christian-based counseling services.

"Our caseloads are full," she said.

Goss said she specializes in working with children and will receive another certification that specializes in working with children younger than 7 years old.

"Currently, families and parents are having to drive to Fargo or Bismarck or at the very closest Valley City to receive counseling services for their younger age groups, which is really not an ideal service to these families," she said. "They're getting out of school for extended periods of time, or they're just not receiving counseling services at all. So just being able to keep and serve that community in this area is something that's kind of new and different, and I think very vital."

The JSDC board unanimously approved a Flex PACE interest buydown in an amount up to about $26,300 for Nordic One LLC to purchase a building at 305 12th Ave. SE in Jamestown.

If approved by the Jamestown City Council and Stutsman County Commission, the city's share will be more than $21,000 and the county's share will be over $5,200.

Bjorn Hanson, owner of Nordic One, plans to use the building for his furniture repair and refinishing and carpentry services business. The business serves residential and commercial properties.

The JSDC board approved Mike Delfs, Dustin Jensen and Ben Steinolfson to be at-large members on the board.

Delfs is a current member on the board and Jensen and Steinolfson will begin their first term. Mayor Dwaine Heinrich is the JSDC's city appointee and Stutsman County Commissioner Levi Taylor is the JSDC's county appointee. Heinrich and Taylor are currently members of the board.

Jen Dockter also will begin her second term on the board.

The executive chairs of the JSDC board will be:

* Jeremy Rham, chair

* Tory Hart, past chair

* Casey Hendeson, vice chair

* Tonya Perkins, secretary/treasurer

The JSDC board has 13 members.