Northeast : Development News

It's a good thing the board members of the American Craft Council made sure the Twin Cities had a deep talent pool before they chose to relocate the group's headquarters from New York City to Minneapolis.

Because not one of the ACC's staff members in NYC made the move.

For a variety of reasons, according to spokeswoman Bernadette Boyle, all 20�25 stayed East, including Boyle. Speaking by phone from New York on Monday, the day the Minneapolis office opened for business, she said the transition feels "bittersweet."

She has heard good things about the historic Grain Belt Brewery building, where the ACC is leasing space from RSP Architects, the firm that renovated the castle-like structure for its own headquarters.

The Twin Cities were familiar to people at ACC because of the craft show the organization holds annually in St. Paul, one of four such shows in cities across the country. (Another of those cities, Atlanta, was under consideration for the new headquarters site.)

So they knew that the Twin Cities are a "cultural hotbed for crafts," Boyle said, with great museums and simply a great place to live.

The organization had to move. New York simply wasn't economically viable for the ACC anymore, Boyle said.

Some staffers, like Boyle, are continuing with ACC for a few weeks or months, and the show staff will stay on, working remotely. About 15 people will staff the new office, she said.

One feature of the SoHo office still due to make the move to Minneapolis is the organization's 7,000-volume library, which Boyle said is open to the public, by appointment.

Source: Bernadette Boyle, American Craft Council
Writer: Chris Steller

Psycho Suzi's, a popular, tiki-themed "motor lounge" in northeast Minneapolis, will move six blocks down Marshall Street to a 15,000-square foot space that used to house Gabby's, a riverfront saloon in a swirl of controversy until its recent closing.

Leslie Bock, Psycho Suzi's' owner, says she was moved to buy the expansive, 1.5-acre property because it allows more elbow room and the Mississippi River frontage holds strong appeal.

"I think tons of people are drawn to waterfront dining/drinking and we're all hoping we don't screw it up,"  Bock says via email. "The space and location will truly allow us to be all we can be. We need space to be creative and artsy, and obviously Northeast Minneapolis is that place."

The building will allow Bock to triple the 80-seat indoor capacity of her current location. She says she'll also be expanding the menu ("slightly"), and "adding some nonsense to keep the space interesting."

The new building is one of several commercial and residential properties along that stretch of Marshall Avenue that border the river. That's a rarity in the city, where most of the riverfront is parkland--or, in the "Above the Falls" sections of North and Northeast Minneapolis, industrial.

The short distance from the current location should make the move--now planned for the fall, close to the establishment's seven-year anniversary--easier, though still a daunting prospect. As Bock puts it, "We are excited and scared out of our pants.

"Psycho Suzi's concept was also meant to be oceanfront. What was I thinking?" she writes. "There are plenty of oceans to be had in Minneapolis ... via the Mississippi River gateway!"

Source: Leslie Bock, Psycho Suzi's
Writer: Chris Steller

"I've never really seen an empty building I didn't like," says local developer Andrew Volna. In the case of the vacant Hollywood Theater in northeast Minneapolis, the buliding held extra appeal: Volna had also seen it in use, as a kid growing up in the neighborhood.

In 2008 Volna hired architects at City Desk Studio to draw up plans for renovating the 1935 landmark, one of a handful of surviving Art Deco theaters by the legendary architecture firm Liebenberg and Kaplan. After shelving the plans as the recession took hold, Volna puts the chances he'll eventually pursue the project at 50-50.

The idea of reviving the Hollywood has long bedazzled and bedeviled city officials and neighborhood activists. The City of Minneapolis bought the building in 1993; efforts toward renovation have percolated ever since, but still the building sits empty on a popular stretch of Johnson Street.

While another Minneapolis theater bearing the Liebenberg and Kaplan stamp, the Varsity in Dinkytown, has made relatively seamless transitions from movie house to photo studio to (now) busy nightclub, that building has one advantage over the Hollywood: "It never had a seive for a roof," says Volna.

Volna envisions a re-use for the Hollywood along the lines of the classic RayVic gas station on East Hennepin Avenue, which he renovated as office space for the web development firm Clockwork.

Volna's other redevelopment efforts on Minneapolis' East Side include the buliding on little-known Winter Street NE that houses his successful digital media manufacturing business, Noiseland Industries.

Source: Andrew Volna, Apiary LLC
Writer: Chris Steller

Some places around town -- under-used, in transition -- seem to be waiting in the wings for their moment in the spotlight. Skewed Visions, a site-specific performance company based in northeast Minneapolis, makes such places part of the show.

Skewed Visions performances have taken place at sites ranging from the Grain Belt Brewery office building in Northeast to a storefront in Minneapolis' Elliot Park neighborhood and the old Drake Marble building on St. Paul's West Side.

As he ticks off those and other performance locations, founding member Charles Campbell notes that every one of the buildings Skewed Visions has visited has seen a new use since.

Moving outside the world of ready-made stages and seats is no simple matter. The company encounters many of the same obstacles that developers -- or other site-specific visual artists, such as Christo -- face when they try to make permanent or even temporary additions to the urban landscape.

Skewed Visions has a light touch at the locations where they perform, Campbell insists: "It's not a high-impact kind of thing."

At the moment, Skewed Visions has its sights set for a future production at a downtown St. Paul site that Campbell wants to keep secret until negotiations with local governmental agencies and other organizations are further along. The performance will be based loosely on "Austerlitz," a book by the late German author W.G. Sebald.  

Skewed Visions' goal is "to make something exciting to witness," Campbell says -- "to engage not just the audience but the spaces."

This will be remembered as the year the City of Minneapolis got serious about community gardening.
 
In previous years, City Hall had an ad hoc system for entertaining occasional requests from groups who wanted to start gardens on city-owned property. Now an initiative called Homegrown Minneapolis is taking that to the streets, with a pilot program soliciting groups to lease space at 20 sites around the city.
 
These aren't just any 20 pieces of unused urban property. In a kind of "American Idol" for local vacant lots, city staff winnowed down a list of about 60 potential garden spots, ranking each on factors such as sun, safety, and access to water. An initial list of 22 properties included two that soil tests showed weren't safe for growing food. Of the remaining 20, two are spoken for: 1213 Spring St. NE, in the Beltrami neighborhood, and 3427 15th Ave. S. in Powderhorn.
 
One of the most critical criteria was whether the properties would tempt developers as the economy turns around. It wouldn't be fair to seek groups committed to gardening for sites likely to sell soon, says Karin Berkholtz, community planning manager. The city will take applications through the summer, with one-year leases for those new to gardening and multi-year leases for experienced groups.
 
Community gardens have gone in and out of fashion over the decades, appearing in city plans as far back as 1917. But this time, Berkholtz asks, "Is it a fashion or is it a paradigm shift?"
 
Source: Karin Berkholtz, City of Minneapolis
Writer: Chris Steller