Drive past the old Sloulin Field footprint today and the story has changed. Two years ago it was graded dirt and survey stakes. This spring it has a drive-thru coffee line, a Taco Bell, a Slim Chickens, an elementary school racing toward its first day, and a Target contract sitting on 16 acres.
The interesting thing is not that Williston Square is being built. That has been the plan since the master plan landed in 2020. The interesting thing is the sequence. The order in which tenants have committed tells you where the center of gravity in Williston is quietly shifting, and it is not where most locals would have guessed five years ago.
The tenants already in the ground
Williston Square sits on the roughly 800-acre site of the former Sloulin Field International Airport, which was decommissioned in 2019 when the new Williston Basin International Airport opened north of town. The city has called it the largest redevelopment project in Williston's history, and by early 2026 roughly 300 of the 800 acres remain available. Everything else is sold, under contract, or under construction.
Here is what has actually opened or been committed to, in the order it arrived:
| Tenant | Status as of mid-2026 | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Genesis | Open | First tenant, local business |
| Slim Chickens | Open | Along Dakota Drive |
| Taco Bell | Open | Prefab build, opened over the past year |
| 7 Brew Drive-Thru Coffee | Open | Opened December 2025 |
| Sloulin Elementary | Opening fall 2026 | Williston Basin School District #7, capacity around 600 students Pre-K through 5 |
| Chick-fil-A | Announced April 16, 2026 | Corner of Dakota Drive and 3rd Avenue West, construction starting mid-May with an opening targeted as early as fall |
| Target | Contract signed | 134,000 sq ft store on 16 acres at 3022 Dakota Drive, spring groundbreaking |
| Bethel Lutheran Nursing & Rehabilitation | Broke ground in 2025 | Relocating from its existing site |
| Williston Ice and Turf Facility | Groundbreaking targeted summer 2026 | 16 to 24 month build, using the former Sloulin Field hangar |
| Muni Golf Course expansion | In progress | Operated by Williston Parks and Recreation District, expanding from 9 holes to 18 |
That is a functioning district, not a rendering. If you live in Williston and have not driven Dakota Drive lately, the corner already feels like a place.
The two anchors that change the math
For years, Williston's retail center of gravity was the 2nd Avenue West corridor near Walmart and the older commercial strips off 26th Street. Everything else was overflow.
Target's decision to sign a contract for a 134,000-square-foot store shifts that. It will be the sixth Target in North Dakota and the first in western North Dakota. City Administrator Shawn Wenko has said Target is looking at a spring groundbreaking, sitting just west of the existing Slim Chickens, Genesis, Taco Bell, and 7 Brew cluster. That is a scale of anchor tenant Williston has not added in a long time, and national retail follows anchors more reliably than it follows demographics.
Chick-fil-A is the other one worth watching. The chain confirmed on April 16, 2026 that it had chosen Williston Square as its newest North Dakota location, making it the seventh in the state and the first in western North Dakota. Each locally-owned Chick-fil-A creates between 80 and 120 jobs per the company's own statement, and construction was set to begin in mid-May with a fall opening pending delays.
Two national commitments in the same quarter, on adjacent parcels, is what causes a district to tip from "developing" to "the place people meet." Slim Chickens and Taco Bell got there first. The next wave will likely be the tenants who want to be near Target.
The school changes the neighborhood, not just the district
Sloulin Elementary is under construction inside Williston Square and will open for the 2026-27 school year, named as a nod to the Sloulin family who originally donated the airport land. The building itself is a Williston Basin School District #7 asset, so operationally it is one of several elementary schools in the city.
What is worth noticing is the location. Placing an elementary school inside Williston Square is the piece that turns a commercial district into a neighborhood. Foot traffic patterns change. Housing decisions change. Parents who live on the west edge of town no longer drive the same route in the morning.
Livability reported that developer Black Diamond Solutions is building Black Diamond Estates inside Williston Square, an 18-home luxury subdivision in the southwest section near the new school, with prices ranging from $400,000 to $600,000 depending on customizations and lot. Reservations opened in July 2025, and a second phase of roughly 84 more lots was scheduled to begin in early 2026. That price band is not entry-level Williston. It signals that the developer sees the school-plus-golf-course-plus-retail combination as an upmarket location, not a starter one.
The quality-of-life layer
The piece that gets less coverage than the retail is the recreation buildout.
The Muni, Williston's existing municipal golf course, sits inside Williston Square. The Williston Parks and Recreation District is expanding it from 9 holes to 18, with planning that kicked off in fall 2025 and groundbreaking planned for 2026. The Muni's existing 75 acres plus nearly 130 surrounding acres pull the western half of the district into recreation use rather than pure commercial.
Next to it, the Williston Ice and Turf Facility is targeted for a summer 2026 groundbreaking with a 16 to 24 month construction window. Williams County pledged $12 million toward the project. The city adopted a resolution committing $1 million annually for ten years plus roughly $13 million in Williston Square infrastructure improvements, plus the sale of up to 17 acres at a reduced rate of $1.65 per square foot and dedication of the former Sloulin Field Airport Hangar for the turf complex, valued at about $4 million. The funding source is the Williams County 1% Sales Tax that voters extended in 2024.
Two things to notice about that funding structure. First, the ice and turf project is being paid for by a sales tax the county has already extended, not a new bond. Second, the city is contributing land at a discount rather than cash for the majority of its share. That is how a municipality signals it wants a project to happen quickly.
Williston Parks and Recreation Executive Director Joe Barsh described the facility as one that will let local teams stay local and welcome regional competition. In practical terms, it means hockey families and turf-sport families who currently drive to Minot or Bismarck for tournaments will stop doing that.
What is still up in the air
Two pieces of the master plan have not moved as fast as the rest.
Sanford Health owns just under 25 acres inside Williston Square and announced a clinic and regional hospital plan back in 2021, with a groundbreaking ceremony in 2022. As of spring 2026 the physical build has not materialized. Economic Development Executive Director Anna Nelson has said the city is still talking with Sanford. That is a large parcel in the middle of the district, and its timing matters for how the health and wellness portion of the master plan fills in.
The 143,000 SF convention and exhibit center plus a 125-room conference hotel that Todd + Associates and Cardon Global designed as the urban core of the site is also still on paper rather than in the ground. It remains part of the vision the city has published, but no groundbreaking date has been announced.
Meanwhile in the western part of Williston Square, land is being subdivided into single-family lots along 33rd Street West. Roughly 100 acres remain for housing and about 100 acres for commercial, with another 35 acres carved out for public or civic space. Nelson has said the city would welcome a senior community on some of the housing acreage.
What this actually means if you live here
A few practical takeaways for residents who are not planning to move but want to understand what is changing:
- Traffic patterns will shift by fall. Sloulin Elementary opens for the 2026-27 school year, and once families are dropping off at 8 a.m. and picking up at 3 p.m., the Dakota Drive and 3rd Avenue West corridor is going to feel different than it does today.
- The 9th Avenue West roundabout and the 33rd Street West connectors are the routes into the district that already exist. If you have not used them, that is the geography to learn.
- The retail pull will lengthen. With Target coming, more of the trips that used to end at Walmart will end inside Williston Square. Restaurants and services that want that traffic will follow.
- The west side of town is quietly becoming the newer, higher-price side. Black Diamond Estates at $400,000 to $600,000, the expanded 18-hole Muni, the new elementary, and the ice and turf facility all cluster in the same quadrant.
Williston Square is not one project. It is a decade-long build where the pieces reinforce each other in a specific order: local business first, then quick-serve chains, then the anchor retailer, then the school, then recreation, and finally the residential fill-in around all of it. Watching the sequence is how you read the market.
If you own a home in Williston and are curious what the last year of Williston Square activity has done to your specific block's value, or you are weighing whether to buy on the west side while the district is still filling in, I am happy to walk you through it. Get in touch with Carla Kemp for a straightforward read on your options and a free home valuation.
