05/22/2026
Hibbing Residents…..This is long. Please bear with me. I promise it’s worth the knowledge.
In the fall of 2025, we contacted the Mayor to introduce ourselves and invite him to come tour our new business, Steel Fitness. During the visit we shared our vision of expansion and our goals for Hibbing. We were told of a building that would soon come up for bid and were even given a tour of this building. This would be the old Hibbing Electronics building.
The bid for proposal from the city came out in early December. Working with the Northland Small Business Development Center, we worked on this proposal for months.
Interviews for this property bid were conducted May 12, 2026. There were only 3 applicants. Ours. Another reputable business in town. And I’m sure you can all guess the 3rd one.
Our vision for the front building was shared in the proposal with the request to purchase the back building at a later date. From proposal submission to date of interview, our plans changed a bit. We wanted both buildings now and were willing to negotiate price.
The main building was set to be our main fitness facility with an additional classroom, steam rooms and three indoor pickleball courts that could be used year round at any time of day. We even had the support of partnership with the local Pickleball Club.
Building two was to become a field house. The plan was for there to be an indoor track and three full sized courts that could be utilized for volleyball to basketball and anything in between. Court time is already difficult to obtain and kids are needing to have practices later in the evening. This could have helped resolve that. More tournaments could have been brought to town without adding to the schools already struggling budget. More hotel rooms could have been booked. More customers to local restaurants. Food trucks could have added another location to park. There would be a large increase in traffic in that industrial park that would support other businesses.
Today we received the call from the HEDA Director that we did not get the building. I’m sure you can all guess who did get the building.
After phone calls with the Mayor and council members it was made very clear the city was concerned with the bottom dollar they would get instead of the best long term value for the city residents and local businesses. One of the comments made was that it was easier to take a check, collect property taxes and be done with it.
It was also stated to us that negotiations are not allowed with RFP’s although when stated in my interview we were willing to negotiate the HEDA Director simply said “ok”, not that it wasn’t allowed AND the city issued RFP clearly states in section 6, last bullet, “Notification of Request to Negotiate: week of March 9, 2026”. Please see the link below.
We are Hibbing natives. We want to invest in our city and see it grow. We lost out on a building/business opportunity to provide healthy recreation to our community. The entire community lost out on something that would benefit all for years to come. This right here is exactly why our city isn’t growing, and why our community continues to lose hope.
The city has not officially signed anything at this point. This is not an entirely closed matter but it’s out of our hands. Now may be the best time to call or email the Mayor and council members to give your feedback on what you want to see happen from those we voted into office.
