GRAND FORKS – If a proposed sports facility becomes reality, it will boost Altru Health System’s total value of cash and land donations to Greater Grand Forks entities to more than $30 million in a little more than a decade.

On Tuesday,

city leaders convened an event at City Hall to announce

Altru – the Grand Forks-based health care provider – has promised $10 million to a sports facility that will be the focus of a citywide vote on Tuesday, Nov. 14. The $10 million will give Altru naming rights on the approximately $100 million facility and will be paid over the course of 25 years.

“Obviously, we’re super excited about it and our confidence in the project speaks for itself. There are so many great things about this and how it impacts … the community’s health and well-being,” Altru CEO Todd Forkel said of the organization’s commitment to the proposed sports facility. “We certainly believe and are encouraged by everything we’ve talked about today that this has a great chance of passing and becoming a reality for our community.”

Technically, the vote on Tuesday will determine the fate of a 0.75% sales tax that has been in place in Grand Forks since the mid-1990s, the proceeds of which have paid to build and maintain the Alerus Center. Scheduled to sunset in 2029, voters will declare whether they want the tax to continue as is and, if so, to use the proceeds this time to construct the indoor sports facility near the Alerus Center that would likely include a turf field, walking track, pickleball courts and, notably, a swim facility that would in essence replace the one that’s being torn down at UND’s Hyslop Sports Center.

Altru’s interest in attaching itself to the proposal comes from the nonprofit organization’s “mission to give back to community projects that better the health and well-being of our residents,” Forkel said.

An indoor sports facility is “well aligned with (Altru’s) mission and vision,” he said. And, if it is actually built, Altru’s donation will continue a string of high-profile, big-dollar commitments made in recent years.

In the past two years, Altru has donated:

● Land, valued at $4 million, for

a proposed Grand Forks children’s museum

;

● $1,004,150 to the

Grand Forks Career Impact Academy

, which is under construction on the city’s north end;

● and $750,000 to Grand Forks Public Schools,

related to renovations at Cushman Field

and sports medicine services.

Altru also has a number of recent “established gifts” over the past decade or so, which have longer terms of payment. They include donations of:

● $6.5 million to the Grand Forks Park District, for use in building Choice Health and Fitness on Grand Forks’ south end;

● $10 million to the UND Foundation, boosting the construction of the Fritz Pollard Athletic Center;

● and $450,000 to the city of East Grand Forks, related to wellness activities and investments.

All told, that’s more than $22 million in big-ticket donations in a little more than a decade, not including the $10 million commitment announced this week for the indoor sports facility, pending voters’ approval of the overall project, of course. It also doesn’t include other, smaller, donations made by the hospital in that time.

Forkel said that as a nonprofit health care provider, the organization is required to give back to the community in various ways.

“One of the ways we do so is to support initiatives that align to our mission. The Altru Sports Complex provides opportunities for our community to be active year-round and promotes safety and wellness,” he said, again noting its alignment with Altru’s mission and vision. “We’re confident the facility will also make a big difference to support the overall quality of life and vitality of our community. Gifts such as these are one way we can give back to our community outside of the walls of Altru.”

It comes at the same time as the construction of Altru’s $475 million hospital, rising above Grand Forks’ skyline along Columbia Road. The new facility is expected to begin seeing its first patients in early 2025 in a seven-story, 226-bed building that will be “one of the most technologically advanced (hospitals) in the Midwest,”

Forkel told the Herald in September.

Mayor Brandon Bochenski this week applauded Altru’s donation to the proposed indoor sports facility and noted how amenities that promote quality of life are important to the city.

“We are very grateful to have Altru as a steadfast partner in (the city’s) commitment to enhance and grow the community,” Bochenski said.

Meanwhile, Altru has a growing commitment in Devils Lake, too. In 2022,

Altru joined with Essentia Health, the city of Devils Lake and the Spirit Lake Nation to sign a letter of intent

to work together to, possibly, create a new medical campus in Devils Lake.

Forkel said the donations and community gifts in and around Grand Forks will not affect any of the hospital’s efforts in Devils Lake.

“The dollars we spend on this project are allocated for community benefit initiatives,” he said of the proposed sports facility, “and therefore do not impact planned spending on operations or capital projects.”

Among Altru’s big-dollar donations in the past decade is a $250,000 contribution to Devils Lake Public Schools, related to “sports medicine and health care services,” according to Altru.