The Dakota Building is a 16,000-square-foot multi-tenant center located on the southeast corner of Third Street and Front Avenue.
The building was built in the 1910s as a laundry business. The Townsend family operated a laundry from there between 1960-1986. Bill Townsend then leased it out to American Linen until summer 1988. It was at that time that he started exploring options for the building, realizing that it was well suited for another purpose given its location at a busy intersection between Bismarck’s downtown and Kirkwood Mall, and near the soon-to-be-expanded Civic Center.
Bill Townsend invested $250,000 renovating the former Capital Laundry building into the Dakota Building, completed in November 1989. Housed inside was Townsend’s own Dakota Awards, which remain to this day. Other initial tenants were Dakota Cyclery, Carden Custom Framing, Mobius Computer Software, a dentist, and a chiropractor.
