Creative Economy : Development News

Within the unassuming Dow Building at 2242 University Avenue in St. Paul are studios in which more than 30 painters, woodworkers, metalworkers and photographers create their work. Now an innovative framing business with a unique model is giving the inner creativity of the Dow Building an outwardly visible face.
 
Khanh Tran opened Frame by Frame in the building’s storefront in September and plans to have his frame shop double as a gallery for artists in the Dow Building. Rather than take a commission on works that sell out of the shop, he charges artists a flat monthly rate to display their work. So far, 16 artists from the building have taken him up on the offer.
 
A frame shop needs artwork to frame and display, while artists need a clean, sleek space to show and sell their work. “It’s a win-win for everybody,” Tran says. He designed the space with crisp white walls and professional grade track lighting.
 
As a tenant of the Dow Building for several years, Tran had been watching the storefront space for some time. He previously rented a small studio in the building to store his framing equipment while pursuing other interests. He developed relationships with many of the artists and makers in the building during that time, making the new gallery arrangement a natural fit.
 
Tran credits his entrepreneurial spirit to his parents. His father was a tailor, his mother a seamstress. Together, they built Tran’s Tailors, a chain of tailor shops throughout the Twin Cities. “They worked hard for it,” Tran says. “It’s not easy to open five businesses from nothing. That’s where I get my drive.”
 
The Trans’ family story of success in the face of adversity began on a boat in the Pacific Ocean in 1978. Looking to escape war-torn Vietnam, Khanh’s father saved what little money he could and bought a 30-foot boat. He boarded his 4-year old son and 20 other children and 10 adults to set out for a more prosperous life. “He wanted to escape Vietnam for the better,” Tran say.
 
The boat arrived in Japan and the passengers were moved to a refugee camp, where eventually they were given entry visas to the U.S. The family again packed up their belongings and headed for Bloomington, Minnesota, where Khanh’s uncle lived. Khanh Tran went to college and discovered framing as a potential profession. He stopped into a local gallery and asked if they needed help. “They hired me on the spot, taught me how to frame and taught me how to sell art,” he says.
 
Tran went on to open his own frame shop and gallery space in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis in a storefront across the street from the Northern Clay Center. He then moved to Montana with his wife. There he opened a successful automobile detail shop.
 
Now, back in the Twin Cities, Tran feels he’s landed in the right place to pursue his first passion: framing and selling beautiful original art. “The reason I continue is I like to see the art and I like to have a hand in making that art look even better,” Tran says.
 
 
 

Conflict is brewing at the Schmidt Brewery site in St. Paul. Proposals to redevelop a warehouse structure adjacent to the new 247-unit Schmidt Artist Lofts on West 7^th Street include an enclosed self-storage facility. Many community members feel the proposed reuse would be a wasted opportunity.
 
The warehouse, a relatively modern structure at 547 James Ave., overlooks the Mississippi River Bluffs. Its proximity to the artist lofts makes the warehouse is a prime destination for more housing or another use that would compliment the new $130 million artist housing development, says Ed Johnson, executive director, Fort Road Federation, which serves as the neighborhood’s District Council.
 
The 67,000-square-foot warehouse was previously used as storage for the brewery, but has been vacant. It’s the only structure on the property not owned by Dominium, which developed Schmidt Artist Lofts, or by the Ford Road Federation.
 
The Federation successfully advocated for the rezoning of the entire Schmidt Brewery site in 2008 to allow for housing and mixed-use development. The current proposal would require a non-conforming use variance that would essentially bring the parcel back to its previous zoning designation as light industrial.
 
Last month, the St. Paul Planning Commission narrowly approved the variance request. The Fort Road Federation is now appealing that decision before the City Council.
 
“Our argument is basically, ‘How can you give up on a rezoning effort that was done several years before these developments got in place and how can you give up so soon after Dominium put [130 million] bucks into that area’,” Johnson says. The Federation is also opposing the proposal on the grounds that it does not conform to the St. Paul Riverfront Master Plan and St. Paul Comprehensive Plan, both of which include references to West 7^th Street.
 
After a previous deal with a potential developer for the Schmidt Brewery complex fell through in 2008, Fort Road Federation stepped up to purchase all the structures on the property except for the main building, which was developed into housing by Dominium. They bought all but the remaining warehouse from long-time owner Bruce Hendry.
 
The Federation is currently in the process of selling off the keg house building to a developer who plans to put in retail. The organization is also working to cover a small budget gap to redevelop the historic Rathskellar: the plan is to put offices on the ground floor and turn the basement--which was formerly an iconic beer and meeting hall, and still retains many historical characteristics and flourishes--into a community event center. The Federation has already secured state and federal historic tax credits for that project.
 
The redevelopment of the Schmidt Brewery site in the West 7^th neighborhood has been ongoing. The Schmidt Brewery celebrated its glory days as one of the most iconic brewery operations in the Midwest. It then had a much-contested and controversial life as an ethanol plant. In its current manifestation, which includes 247 units of affordable artist housing, the brewery is a story of urban rejuvenation and community revitalization.
 
The neighborhood has been slow to recover after Hwy 35E took out a third of its population, and is still struggling to overcome a reputation for violence and crime. The tide seems to be turning, thanks to projects like the Schmidt Artist Lofts and other efforts to revitalize the area.
 
 
 
 
 

Following a successful summer at the Minneapolis Farmers Market, the Herbivorous Butcher is moving ahead with plans to open a brick-and-mortar location to sell its “meatless meats.”
 
From ropes of “pepperoni” hanging from the ceiling to the black-and-white tile lining the walls, the new butcher shop envisioned by Aubry Walch and scheduled to open next year will have all the hallmarks of an old-time butcher—except the meat.
 
The Herbivorous Butcher cleared the coolers during its June opening weekend at the Market. Despite consistently upping production, Walch says she’s sold out her inventory every weekend since.
 
“We keep making more batches and we just can’t keep up with demand,” says Walch, who started the business with her business partner and brother Kale Walch.
 
To better feed the demand, the siblings plan to open the Twin Cities’ first meatless butcher shop in early 2015. They’re currently working with Studio M Architects, which designed the Wise Acre Eatery, to replicate the idyllic atmosphere of a traditional butcher shop. “We hope to take people back in time when they come in,” Walch says.
 
Aubry Walch’s been a strict vegetarian for 18 years. Her brother Kale is vegan. After wearying of available meatless options—which are often frozen, and contain loads of sodium and long lists of unrecognizable ingredients—they began concocting their own meat alternatives from locally sourced whole food ingredients.
 
They decided to put their culinary acumen to the test and enlisted 10 test groups that included vegans, vegetarians and meat-eaters for an eight-week stint of food testing. The results, Walch says, were resoundingly positive.
 
It’s not just vegetarians and vegans gobbling up the inventory. Walch estimates that at least 60 percent of their customers are full-blooded carnivores discovering healthier meat alternatives for the first time.
 
The main ingredient in almost all of the products is vital wheat gluten sourced from Whole Grain Milling Co. in Welcome, MN.  Even though the product is 95 percent protein, it’s extremely low in carbohydrates and fat, and is cholesterol free.
 
“We have people who come to us because they have heart disease or diabetes…and they can’t eat meat anymore,” Walch says. “We’re the perfect alternative for them and they seek us out.”
 
There’s no shortage of meat-free protein alternatives on co-op shelves in the Twin Cities, but the Herbivorous Butcher has uncovered a serious hunger for handmade and locally sourced meatless meat. Every item sold at the Herbivorous Butcher is made fresh by hand in small batches from locally sourced whole food ingredients and is never frozen.
 
Thus far the meatless mainstays at the Herbivorous Butcher include pepperoni, Italian sausage, barbecue ribs, deli bologna and teriyaki jerky. Once the new shop is up and running, other market specials including Mexican chorizo, maple sage breakfast sausage and beer brats will be available.
 
Finding the right investors has been somewhat of a struggle, Walch says. The problem isn’t a lack of interest; it’s that many see a lucrative opportunity and want the meatless butchers to automate all their production, freeze their products and distribute nation-wide. Walch isn’t willing to sacrifice the artisanal approach and reliance on local ingredients that going so big would require.
 
Instead, the Herbivorous Butcher is taking the crowd funding approach, and will launch a campaign later this fall.
 
 

Wander North Distillery recently became the latest micro-distillery to open in Minneapolis, when owner Brian Winter cut the ribbon at the new location in Northeast Minneapolis with City Councilmember Kevin Reich.
 
Thanks to legislation passed in 2011 that significantly lowered a $30,000 annual permit fee for distillers in Minnesota, Winter says he was able to turn his long-time interest in the history of spirits and drinking in America into a viable business.
 
“Liquor production is tied hand-in-hand with the rise of the United States,” Winter argues. “Unlike brewing and beer, there hadn’t been the resurgence of locally produced spirits yet.” Minneapolis’ first micro-distillery, Norseman, opened last year.
 
Wander North’s first spirit, Outpost Vodka, is made from 100 percent Minnesota grown corn sourced from a supplier in Rosemount. Referencing the mutually supportive craft brewing community in Northeast, Winter says he is also pursuing plans for collaboration with local craft brewers, including Northgate Brewing, which recently expanded into a new space in the same building.
 
He hopes to take the wort (liquid extracted during the mashing process prior to adding yeast or hops) from Northgate’s Maggie’s Leap stout, ferment it, distill it and then age it in oak barrels. He would then hand the barrels back to Northgate to age the same beer in. “Then, sit and taste the whiskey and beer side by side,” he says. Winter is pursuing a similar collaboration with Sociable Cider Werks.
 
The state also passed legislation this past spring that allows for distilleries to have paid tasting rooms. The wait now is for Minneapolis to change its ordinance to allow for it, which Winter says is in the works.
 
Once the regulations are in place, Winter plans to launch a cocktail lounge on site. The lounge will feature two or three seasonal mainstay cocktails, along with several others that change on a weekly basis. “We’ll be limited to what is made at the distillery. But vodka is a pretty versatile starting point,” he says.
 
Wander North will donate at least 1 percent of its profits back to the community with an emphasis on veterans programs. Winter has served in the U.S. Military since 1993. Twelve of those years were on active duty, including as a platoon leader in Baghdad in 2004 and as a company commander in 2007. He currently serves as an assistant engineer officer with the Minnesota National Guard one weekend a month.
 
“A small business like Wander North is local. We pay local taxes, sell to people in the community and live in the community,” he says. “Why, if my business is successful, would I not want to give back to the community that helps me succeed?”
 
 
 

Urban Forage Winery & Cider House is looking to join the abundance of local beverage startups in the Twin Cities. With the recent arrival of cider brewers and micro-distilleries, Urban Forage’s Jeff Zeitler is asking “Why not an urban winery?”
 
The answer is complicated due to national, state and city regulations. But Zeitler is forging ahead with renovations to the future home of the Midwest’s first urban winery, in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis.
 
Zeitler has been making wine, cider and mead with fruit and other ingredients foraged in the Twin Cities for two decades. Whether shaking mulberry trees in Como Park or plucking donated apples from a neighbor’s tree, his process leads to a product with the unmistakable terroir of the Twin Cities. His latest dandelion lilac wine was a big hit at his block’s National Night Out party, he says.
 
To scale the operation up to a commercial level (he wants to produce almost 6,000 gallons of product a year), he hopes to supplement what he can forage with produce past its shelf life—but still good for making wine—from local grocery stores and warehouses. He also plans to use surplus fruit from area orchards and farms. He’s going to have to clear some regulatory hurdles first, though.
 
To protect and promote Minnesota’s fledgling rural wine industry, the State Legislature passed the Farm Wineries Act in 2012. The statute gives farm wineries special status under Minnesota liquor laws, with a number of special allowances such as Sunday sales, self-distribution and the ability to operate a full restaurant.
 
The law also specifies farm wineries must be located on agricultural land—a sticking point for Zeitler’s “urban winery,” which would be located at 3016 East Lake Street in Minneapolis. He would be able to operate under a previous winery law still on the books, but wouldn’t have the many advantages allowed to farm wineries.
 
Zeitler spent the last year lobbying the State Legislature to even the playing field between farm and urban wineries. “Right now rural wineries have a lot of advantages…and I was trying to get urban wineries put on the same level, but there were a lot of people opposed,” he says.
 
If Zeitler were to mix a certain percentage of barley malt in with cider while brewing, as other cider makers in the area do, he could operate with a brewer’s license and enjoy the benefits offered to brewers under recent state and city legislative changes that have lead to the brew boom in the Twin Cities. But he’s unwilling to do so, which leaves him with a winery designation in the eyes of the federal government.
 
After hiring a lawyer to help interpret state statutes, Zeitler is now confident state law will allow him to sell onsite and operate the winery equivalent of a taproom. Current city regulations, however, would not.
 
So as things currently stand, Urban Forage Winery can produce onsite, distribute via a distributor and sell online. For now, Zeitler says, that’s enough. He will take the fight to the Minneapolis City Council.
 
Regardless, Zeitler plans to begin production in spring of 2015. “If nothing else, we will do production in the basement,” he says. “If we never get self-distribution or sales onsite, well, who knows how long we’ll make it? But we’re going to give it a shot.”
 
 

Hidden in the urban jungle of concrete and steel is a whole natural world waiting to be rediscovered and explored, says local artist and botanist Sarah Nassif. The new Green Line light-rail stations, she adds, are a great place to start.

Nassif’s new project, The Other Green Line, supported by Irrigate Arts, asks participants to start thinking of Green Line stations as not only jumping off points to previously unexplored businesses and restaurants, but also as trailheads leading to underappreciated natural beauty and history.

“The more you look, the more you see, and it happens really fast,” Nassif says of taking time to notice the natural world along the Central Corridor.

The Other Green Line is a field guide for amateur urban naturalists. Nassif organized the book into eight, themed nature “forays” along the Green Line.

One follows the path of a wayward black bear that took itself on a walk through the Frogtown neighborhood in 2012. Another explores the Kasota Wetlands near the Raymond Station, which are a remnant of a 1,000-acre backwater once fed by the free-flowing Mississippi.

The forays take participants through several different biomes—less identifiable today than they were 100 years ago. Lowertown was once dense forest, for instance. The area around the Victoria Station used to be prairie.

Tower Hill in Prospect Park is one of many glacial hills that once dotted the Minneapolis landscape before most were mined for gravel. Tower Hill still stands because neighbors bought the site and turned it into a park to keep it from being mined.

Tower Hill, Nassif says, “speaks volumes [about] how much the landscape changes because we’re here, and how people coming together and being aware together about nature can have a powerful effect on what’s here for future generations.”

In addition to the eight self-guided forays in the book, Nassif is leading a series of three tours. The first began at Bedlam Theater last Saturday and explored the white sandstone cliffs along the Mississippi River once used as natural refrigeration for kegs of beer, as well as pirate safe keeps and hideouts. Tour goers also noticed stones mined from area quarries and used in the Endicott Building at 141 E. 4th Street.

“It’s just interesting to stand there and realize you’re standing on what used be an ocean, that’s why the sandstone exists—it used to be the bottom of a sea,” Nassif says.

Also in the field guide are lists of area businesses for excursion supplies, and suggestions for where to cozy up to a beer and a meal when you’re finished. “There are tons of new places to explore both in the landscape and in the humanscape,” Nassif says.

Nassif’s field guide contains blank pages to draw and record what you find. You can also share your findings, sketches and stories on The Other Green Line website, where there is a list of area businesses carrying the book and information on upcoming guided tours.

 

Last weekend, with the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District abuzz with Art-A-Whirl—the largest annual open-studio art tour in the country—the scene was set for the grand opening of Artspace Jackson Flats. The $10 million, 35-unit, live-work artist apartments in Northeast are the first affordable artist housing project in the city from the Minneapolis-based national nonprofit, Artspace.
 
With a large lawn and playset on the property, which is located in the Logan Park neighborhood, Artspace is billing the new property as family-friendly—something president Kelley Lindquist says is something of a rarity in the city.
 
“It’s a little more challenging for young parents to have kids in intense downtown projects…it’s just much easier when the residence is neighborhood-based,” Lindquist says.
 
Children can often lend to the creative and collaborative environment Artspace seeks to foster. Kids are often the first to break down communication walls, running through the halls and forming relationships with other children in the building.
 
“Eventually the parents start hanging out and start sharing their different artistic skills and coming up with new creative projects—and they may never have done so without their children paving the way,” Lindquist says.
 
Other Artspace projects like the Frogtown Family Lofts in St. Paul—the organization’s second project ever, completed in 1991—are also good examples of children spurring collaboration in creative environments.
 
Artist and Jackson Flats resident April Barnhart, who launched her Aprilierre jewelry line in 2009, says she is already benefitting from the artist community developing in and beyond the building.
 
“It’s really not an easy decision when you decide to commit your life to the arts,” she says.  “Having the right resources and the right workspace are important to cultivate creativity.”
 
Being in close proximity to other creative people has advantages as well. Barnhart experienced these benefits first hand when she ran into a neighbor in the building who heard she was a jeweler. He happened to have a set of glass display cases he no long needed and thought she could put them to good use.
 
“They were exactly what I’ve been looking for in antique stores for years,” she said.
 
As much as Jackson Flats was built for artists, it was also a product of the artist community to begin with. When former Northeast Community Investment Cooperative Executive Director John Vaughn sat down with the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association in 2004, the organization’s goals were specific: First, to create and arts district, and second, was to build artist housing.
 
“We took that heart and that became our mission,” Vaughn says. He brought in architects from UrbanWorks Architecture to a neighborhood meeting where he talked with artists and residents of the area about what they wanted from the building that would become Jackson Flats.
 
As residents threw out ideas, the architect drew them into a design. At the end of the hour-long meeting, the sketch had taken shape. “This building very much looks like it was originally envisioned,” Vaughn said. “It comes very much out of the arts community and out of this community here.
 
The opening of Jackson Flats was part of Artspace’s “Breaking Ground” celebration, which began with a creative placemaking symposium featuring grantees from the St. Paul Companies Leadership Initiatives in Neighborhoods program at the new multi-family residence.

The celebration concluded Monday at an event at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts (another Artspace project) during which Artspace presented numerous awards. The awardees included Catherine Jordon of Minneapolis, recipient of the Paul Brawner Award for Support of the Arts.
 
 
 

The bicycling renaissance in the Twin Cities is in high gear. Minneapolis and St. Paul are both working to expand already respectable bicycling infrastructures, and more residents than ever, from all walks of life, are getting around town on two wheels. But, as Jason Tanzman of Cycles for Change in St. Paul is quick to point out, “the reality is the bike movement is a white movement.”

That’s something Cycles for Change, a nonprofit community bike shop bordering the Frogtown and Summit-University neighborhoods, is looking to change.

“Our vision is to build a diverse and empowered community of bicyclists,” says Tanzman, the director of development and outreach for the organization.

In addition to a full service retail and mechanic shop, Cycles for Change offers a host of programming designed to build a resilient and diverse community around bicycling—and it is quickly gathering momentum.

In 2013, the organization lent out 290 bikes from their Bike Library by partnering with community and civic organizations from around the metro to pair eager riders from low-income areas with new sets of wheels for 6-month leases. Riders in the Bike Library program also get a complimentary helmet and lock, and training to be confident and safe on the roads.

The Build a Bike Class brought in 120 area youth who constructed their own bikes from the ground up, learned how to maintain their bikes and mastered the rules of the road before riding out the door, according to Tanzman. Cycles for change also mentored 12 youth apprentices last year—many of them now help design and run the organization’s programs and retail shop.

Many of the people joining Cycles for Change represent populations Tanzman says are not adequately represented in the bicycling movement. The fastest growing groups of bicyclists nationwide are people of color, according to a report by the League of American Bicyclists.

From 2001 to 2009, the percent of all trips that are by bike in the African-American population grew by 100 percent. Trips by Asians-Americans grew by 80 percent and Hispanics took 50 percent more trips by bike during that period, while whites saw a 22 percent increase, according to the equity report.

When it comes to making decisions about where new bike lanes will go or advocating for how new bike trails are designed, people of color and people of low socioeconomic status aren’t adequately represented at the table, Tanzman says.

“No matter how many people of different racial groups ride bikes, there is an underrepresentation of people from low-income communities and people of color in the decision-making bodies,” Tanzman said.

In many ways, these are groups that would particularly benefit from improved bicycling infrastructure. “A bike is a way to save money,” he says. “A bike is a way to live a healthy life.

According to Tanzman, 25 percent of the households in the Cycles for Change neighborhood don’t have access to a car. “Then of those other 75 percent that do, they might have one car in the household, and maybe it’s not that reliable, maybe it costs a lot of money to gas it up every week,” he says.

“There are so many natural opportunities to build alliances and really make the bicycling movement a multi-racial, multi-ethnic movement that it’s not right now.”

Cycles for Change is hosting a Spring Celebration Monday May 19 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 pm at the shop, 712 University Avenue East.

The innovative developer that brought Minneapolis such imaginative properties as The Broadway, Aria and Icehouse Plaza is taking on its biggest project yet with its first venture into St. Paul. First & First is moving ahead with the redevelopment of a 5.5-acre, multi-structure property at 550 Vandalia Street in the Creative Enterprise Zone to be known as Vandalia Tower—a nod to the old water tower that will become a focal point of the property.

Founder and head visionary Peter Remes says he plans to transform the property into a dynamic campus housing an array of creative tenants from woodworkers to graphic designers, artists, architects and more. He says negotiations are also underway with potential craft brewers and restaurants. One of the defining features of the campus will be what Remes describes as a “secret garden” courtyard in the center of the complex.

“It’s a big campus, a big project by almost anyone’s standards,” says Remes, who grew up less than two miles from the site—a fact he says gives the project particular personal significance.

The 205,000-square-foot property sits one block north of I-94 and two blocks south of University Avenue where the new Metro Transit Light Rail Green Line will start running June 14.  In many ways, the location speaks to another of First & First’s defining missions—to connect a place’s past, present and future; preserving it’s heritage while breaking transformational new ground.

The Midway area of St. Paul has a rich history as both an industrial center and transportation hub dating back to the end of the 19th century when James J. Hill imagined the area as a central connection point for the Great Northern Railway.

More recently, the Vandalia Tower property embodied the industrial past of the area as home to the King Koil Mattress factory. Remes plans to keep that history close to the surface as he reinvents the property as a modern mixed-use centerpiece to a neighborhood already gaining recognition as a center of creative activity and commerce.

“That’s when the magic occurs, in terms of being able to honor that past and let that history breathe, and yet infuse it with modern day amenities…and just really have this juxtaposition that occurs when you walk in that can be very thought provoking,” Remes says.

The main building is currently home to around 30 tenants including a growing community of woodworkers, artists, and other creative entrepreneurs. Some have worked out of the crumbling building for years, while others are newly recruited tenants.

Nordeast Makers moved into the building last fall. Hundreds of members use the large shared workspace—and its collection of top-of-the-line equipment—to tinker, build and create everything from art and furniture to innovative software and technologies.

Remes says these are the types of tenants he hopes to attract and cater to at Vandalia Tower. “What they bring to the table is that energy we hope to continue to build upon and to grow,” he says.

First & First hosted a meeting with current tenants last month, many of whom are worried the lofty development plans will increase rents that would price them out of their spaces. Remes says that while modest rent increases are likely, the goal is to keep as many of the creative tenants already there as possible.

“We want these people to prosper, we want them to do well, and that goes for the neighboring businesses, as well,” he said.

 

The vibrant blend of sights, smells, sounds, and people milling together at Southeast Asian night markets can be a vivid sensory and cultural experience. This summer, the Asian Economic Development Association (AEDA) is bringing a slice of that life to the Twin Cities.

Throughout the summer, AEDA will hold five outdoor night markets in the Little Mekong business and cultural district of Saint Paul, between the Mai Village and Little Szechuan restaurants on the 300 block of University Avenue. The first market will be held June 14, the same day the Green Line’s light-rail service begins.

The Little Mekong district is home to a high concentration of Asian residents and businesses. Of the almost 80 establishments on the five-block stretch of University between Mackubin and Marion streets, about 75 percent are Asian-owned according to a 2013 AEDA study documenting the impact of Central Corridor Light Rail Transit on the area.

Many of these small businesses were hit hard by light-rail construction over the last several years, according Theresa Swaney, AEDA’s communications coordinator. AEDA hopes to bring needed visibility, and customers, to businesses still reeling from the disruption. Swaney also hopes the night markets will help breathe new life into the area as a nighttime destination. “It’s sort of shifting the idea of what’s acceptable, and possible, at night,” she says.

Like farmers markets, the Little Mekong night markets will host local farmers selling fresh produce, but also up to 30 different vendors selling specialty food, art, and crafts. “It’s sort of this mix between a festival and a farmers market,” says Swaney. “It’s going to be a little more entertaining and a little more exciting than just getting your vegetables.” Artist organizer Oskar Ly is planning live performances, art, and activities as part of the market.

Organizers are currently looking for businesses and vendors located from throughout the Twin Cities to participate. Unlike many markets, applicants don’t have to be established. “We’re pushing toward new vendors,” Swaney says. “We want these people to have an opportunity to sell their stuff, and if they do well, maybe draw them into opening a brick-and-mortar business in the district or along University.”

AEDA also hopes the night markets will help lay ground for a new public plaza and community gathering space at the site. A rundown building used mostly for storage currently sits in the middle of the plot. The organization recently held a series of workshops and community meetings to gather input on redeveloping the site.

Source: Theresa Swaney
Writer: Kyle Mianulli

Whether through images of the early English barmaid, American sitcom brewery workers Laverne and Shirley, or the Miller Lite Girls passing out promos at sports bars, women and beer have had a dynamic, sometimes complicated relationship through history.

For Deb Loch and Jill Pavlak of Urban Growler Brewing, however, it’s pretty simple.

“We happen to be women and we happen to brew beer,” Pavlak said before a screening last week of “The Love of Beer,” a documentary about women fighting to end gender stereotypes surrounding the craft beer industry in the Pacific Northwest. The film and discussion, part of the Minnesota Museum of American Art’s First Friday Film series, also showed how women are taking hold in the craft brewing industry all over the country.

According to Doug Hoverson, author of “Land of Amber Waters: The History of Brewing in Minnesota,” who led the discussion with Loch and Pavlak before the screening, temple priestesses in ancient Mesopotamia are credited with beer’s invention.

Women also brewed the family’s beer during the early Colonial era. In Medieval England, housewives would make ale and advertise their brew by hanging a broom over their door. These pop-up alehouses were so successful, the aristocracy eventually levied a tax against them, Hoverson said.

Marketing beer by using images of women is a familiar strategy. But marketing beer to women isn’t a new concept, either. One ad from the late 1960s—a time when women purchased most of the beer for the household—shows a bottle of beer nestled amongst a bouquet of pastel-colored flowers. In the 20s and 30s, Guinness was billed as a nutritious beverage for gestating and nursing mothers.

In 2011, Chick Beer ruffled some feathers with the release of “the first beer specifically for women.” The bottles, covered in labels shaped like black cocktail dresses, were packed in purse-like cases with white sequins, thus embracing a hyper-feminine stereotype. “Marketers insist on marketing beer to a particular vision of women, which doesn’t always fit,” Hoverson said.

In contrast, neither Urban Growler’s logo nor messaging identifies the company as women-owned and -run. Loch says the product appeals to women, instead, with flavorful, quality beer—sometimes with a more moderate alcohol content. The brewery opens this spring in the Creative Enterprise Zone of Saint Paul.

“We want to be pretty much gender neutral,” Pavlak said. “We have lived our lives believing we can do whatever we want to do, and have felt a lot of craft brewers are very inclusive. We want to continue that tradition.”

Pavlak and Loch aren’t the only women making suds in the industry. Deborah Carey founded New Glarus Brewing Co. in Wisconsin as a gift to her home-brewing husband, Dan, in 1993. “Dan makes amazing beer, but Deb is in charge,” Hoverson remarked. New Glarus teamed with German-based Weyermann Malting, also led by a woman, to release the Two Women American style lager in 2010.

“Hopefully,” Hoverson added, “we’ll get to the point where this will not be particularly newsworthy anymore.”

Source: Jill Pavlak, Deb Loch, Doug Hoverson
Writer: Kyle Mianulli
 

The grand opening of Sunrise Creative Gourmet Market on Saturday, March 8, continues a 100-year-long tradition for the Forti family of bringing hard working Minnesotans authentic Italian cuisine. The new venture at 865 Pierce Butler Route in Saint Paul includes a retail location, factory outlet, and large-scale cooperative commercial kitchen with dedicated gluten-free space.

Fourth generation owner Tom Forti is building on the foundation laid by his great grandfather in 1913, when he opened the original Sunrise Bakery in Hibbing. Guilio Forti emigrated from Rome in the early 1900s to work in the mines of southern Minnesota. Already in his 50s, he soon decided to leave the mine and return to his former craft—baking artisan Italian breads.

Sunrise Creative Gourmet holds its Italian heritage close while bringing age-old recipes into the modern age. Many of the recipes used today have been passed down from generation to generation, according to Forti. Using imported Italian equipment along with locally sourced ingredients maintains another level of authenticity while incorporating modern flare.

“It’s an emotional investment in the product,” Forti says.  “We’re a very prideful family and we take great pleasure in knowing people like our food.”

That pride was reaffirmed Saturday. With more than 500 customers stopping in to sample both classic and new fare from Sunrise, the small market was bustling from open to close. “It’s great for a little shop like this…we had no idea what to expect,” Forti says. “It was a pleasant surprise.”

Forti’s father started his own spinoff of Sunrise Bakery when he opened Sunrise Deli in Hibbing, incorporating fresh pastas, Italian meats, and more to the family’s line of baked goods. He and Tom’s mother own and operate the deli today, while his aunt and cousin run the original Sunrise Bakery, both in Hibbing.

Tom Forti is now bringing a new perspective to the family business. After graduating from the University of Saint Thomas in 2001, he went to work in the food industry, spending three years working retail and restaurants in Idaho. He moved back to Hibbing in 2004 to bring a wholesaling aspect to the family business. For the past nine years he has been working for Trudeau Distributing, a specialty grocery distribution company.

Through that role, he’s formed important relationships with Twin Cities’ grocers and co-ops, he says. He’s also become a familiar sight at area farmers’ markets, where he staffs the family stand.

While the Saint Paul retail expansion is an exciting development for the family business, it’s the cooperative commercial kitchen component that has Forti’s passion cooking.

“This building is going to service as retail, but really, we’re here to produce gluten-free pasta and hopefully gluten-free entrees,” he says.

With half the space dedicated for gluten-free production, Forti is looking forward to bringing in up to 12 other small- to medium-size businesses to use the space and sell their products in the marketplace up front.

The Sunrise Market will carry products from all the family’s related businesses including, fresh, frozen and dried pastas, sauces and porketta, as well as signature potica, biscotti, and other baked goods.

Source: Tom Forti
Writer: Kyle Mianulli

As the craft beer boom and local food movement have shown, the Twin Cities has developed a palate for artisanal and locally produced fare. Shawn Person, of Moonshine Coffee Co., is now looking to expand our developing taste for specialty roast coffee. In early March, he’s opening a new storefront location in the Creative Enterprise Zone next to the Green Line in Saint Paul. Roundtable Coffee Works, he says, is a “coffee roasting manufactory.”

Inspired by craft guilds and modeled after collaborative workspaces, Roundtable Coffee Works will house an array of local businesses endeavoring to create their own unique Twin Cities’ flavors of specialty coffee. “It’s really about sharing knowledge and helping each other out—establishing that kind of community,” Person says.

It might not make financial sense for a local coffee shop to purchase and maintain personal roasting equipment. But being able to rent a roaster by the hour to make a one-of-a-kind specialty roast? That’s an opportunity Person is confident coffee entrepreneurs will jump at.

After six years in the Twin Cities’ roasting scene, Person is an industry veteran, he says. He already has several local coffeepreneurs on board and a surprising number of home roasters have approached him about utilizing the space. Due to rising interest, he also plans to have dedicated hours for hobbyists to come in and roast their own beans.

“There’s a growing awareness of specialty coffee in general,” Person says. He’s also noticing “differences in ways of selling coffee. By that I mean Starbucks, Dunn Bros., and Caribou all sell coffee a certain way, and it works. But then there’s another way to sell [it], and that’s small and local, with a neighborhood focus, as well as quality focus.”

Just as people are flocking to taprooms to taste local microbrews, so are they increasingly interested in how their morning java tastes—and is made. They want to feel connected to the process, he says. “People want to see the roaster... At Thanksgiving, they want to brew some coffee in the morning and tell their family, ‘Yeah, my buddy Shawn roasted this.’”

Roundtable will have a retail component though don’t look for tables to sit at with your laptop while you leisurely sip a breve hazelnut latte. The roaster will only offer drip coffee and espresso to go, along with beans. The Roundtable brand of coffee won’t be wholesaled either.

For Person, his start up is more about serving residents of and visitors to the neighborhood. Still, eager customers can purchase Roundtable Coffee beans, mugs, t-shirts and other gear for a limited time through an online pop-up shop and similar pop-ups he’ll schedule annually.

Source: Shawn Person
Writer: Kyle Mianulli

Sisyphus Brewery, named for a character in Greek mythology, plans to open in Loring Park in April. The brewery will include a taproom and a 100-seat theater for live comedy, music, and podcasts about beer. The name is about keeping things fresh, with new taps and new acts every week, says co-owner Sam Harriman.

Harriman, a comedy veteran who co-owns the brewery with his wife Catherine Cuddy, are renovating the first floor of a vintage warehouse space that previously served as storage for the nearby Dunwoody College of Technology. The 7,000-square-foot space has low ceilings, exposed brick walls, and industrial floors and ceilings that “We’re not touching,” he says.  The couple is taking a “less-is-more” kind of approach to the design, with wood and metal finishes setting the tone. 

Within the taproom area, Harriman adds, “we’re creating different zones” with booths, shuffleboard, and “a lot of different hangout spots.” In some ways, the place will feel more like a coffee shop, where people can linger over a beer or take in a show. The theater’s programming will come later — after the taproom gets set up.   

The couple decided to merge the brewery with an entertainment venue to differentiate Sisyphus from other breweries. In the near future, the local brewery scene will be “super competitive, more so than it is now,” he says. “I thought entertainment and beer would go perfectly together.”

Source: Sam Harriman, co-owner, Sisyphus Brewing  
Writer: Anna Pratt  



 

A historic mansion in Minneapolis’s Lowry Hill neighborhood,  last used as an office four years ago, could soon see inhabitants once again. Owner Jack Kistler wants to renovate the 1906-built Eugene J. Carpenter house and bring in a bed-and-breakfast, a beauty salon, and several apartment units. 

The house is significant for its Georgian-Revival style exterior, the handiwork of Edwin Hewitt, who was a well-known local architect, according to city materials. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Mina Adsit of Adsit Architecture, the firm behind the project, says the interior is well preserved, with its original panels and high ceilings intact, though the exterior needs to be restored. As such, the facade will be fixed up and repainted. The plan calls for the restoration of a previous covered porch along with an old garden space where a surface parking lot currently exists. The idea is to return the house to a residential use that’s in keeping with the neighborhood’s original character, Adsit says. 

That’ll help the owner to “tell the story of the house,” which was the first of its kind in the area. It’s also a chance to talk about the history of the Carpenter family, which had a hand in founding several arts institutions in the city around the turn-of-the-century, she says. In general, the idea is to “preserve that feeling of place that happens up there on the hill with the big houses.”   

“The whole area of the top of the hill is kind of threatened historically. These mansions are getting overwhelmed by the buildings around them,” she says. The goal is to begin construction on the house this spring and to open the place in the summer of this year, according to Adsit. 
    
Source: Mina Adsit, architect, Adsit Architecture 
Writer: Anna Pratt