creative economy : Development News

Waite House, a community gathering place in Minneapolis’s Phillips neighborhood, started construction at its new home this month. It’s about 80 percent of the way to its goal of raising $250,000 for the project, according to Waite House information.

The neighborhood organization is moving from its cramped quarters at 2529 13th Avenue South only blocks away into the larger Phillips Community Center at 2323 11th Avenue South.

By the spring, the organization will be sharing the building with a handful of other community-oriented organizations, including the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board, which has also revamped some parts of the complex.

Waite House director Francisco Segovia says that the new digs will allow for “collaboration with other organizations under the same roof."

Community members will be able to take advantage of the fitness center, eat healthy meals, and take classes. It also has a double gym, teen center, kitchen, dining room, offices, parking, and more.   

“This will enhance and provide services to a lot of kids in Phillips,” says Segovia.

The remodeling project mainly involves tearing down walls, installing new flooring, and upgrading systems, he says.  
 
Until now, the Waite House has had to juggle a community café and a gym in the same space.

In the new building, the functions will be separate. It’ll also have a computer lab, community-organizing-focused library, wireless Internet access, and meeting space.  

The food shelf is going to be bigger, he says. “We’ll be able to store more fresh food than we can at this point.”  

In the future, he hopes the organization will be able to open a coffee cart to have on hand for meetings.

“It’s a place in the neighborhood where community members of all nationalities and ages can come and network with people there,” he says.

Source: Francisco Segovia, director, Waite House
Writer: Anna Pratt

A vibrant mural at 12th Street and Hennepin Avenue South uniquely calls attention to the coming Butcher and the Boar restaurant while also sprucing up a previously nondescript corner.

Local artist Adam Turner, whose work also adorns Creative Lighting in St. Paul and the Surly Brewery in Minneapolis, says, "All the work the company is doing is really upping the beauty of that area. That building was kind of rundown. It’s bringing new life to it.” 

The 20-foot by 20-foot mural, which could be enlarged later, pictures a blond-haired woman who is poised with a vintage-looking bicycle. A silhouette of the Minneapolis skyline is behind her while oversized stalks of wheat frames the figure.

It's characterized by fall colors.

On the whole, the image speaks to the clientele the restaurant is planning to attract along with the area’s bike and beer culture, he says. "The mural is about the vibe [the restaurateurs] want to have."

As if to demonstrate that, a woman who resembled the figure in the mural, who had a similar bike, posed in front of the scene one night for a photo.  

The mural came together over the summer and fall months.

During that time, the parking lot that the mural faces was being redone, so he worked in the mud. Nevertheless, he’s enjoyed being in the elements.

Already attracted a lot of comments from passersby who spotted him working. “Hopefully a lot of people will see it and like it.”   

He hopes it paves the way for other businesses to do more work like this and “not be afraid to come up with a proposal that’s a little fun and expressive of its views.”

Source: Adam Turman, mural artist, Butcher and the Boar
Writer: Anna Pratt

Soon, Minneapolis's East Side will get something called a Local Food Resource Hub.

The hub, which is still in planning stages, is a part of a program that was piloted in the city last year. Through neighborhood-embedded hubs, it connects hundreds of gardeners to discounted seeds and seedlings, tool sharing, workshops, and more.

Stephanie Hankerson, who is a program volunteer, explains, “A hub implies a physical location that people descend to but it’s more of a network of gardeners supporting each other." She adds that the hubs have only temporary locations.

Another hub is also in the works in St. Paul.

Gardening Matters, a local nonprofit agency that provides support for community gardens, is administering the program in partnership with the city and various community organizations and businesses.  

Hankerson explains, “The idea is to lower the barriers to get food-growing happening in backyards and community gardens and even support for commercial enterprises.”

It’s based on a model that’s been successful in Detroit, according to Hankerson.

Hubs offer memberships to gardeners based on a sliding scale fee, and scholarships are available.

Last year, each hub had about 200 members, which is a number that she expects to increase this year.

The individual volunteer-driven hubs each have a different flavor. “It reflects the neighborhood and community it’s coming from,” says Hankerson. 

“My hope is that the hub would be a support system for folks to grow their own food,” she says, adding, “At the same time, it’ll make our neighborhoods more sustainable and self-sufficient.”

On March 3, the hubs are hosting a program-wide fundraiser, with a winter sowing demonstration, composting tips, and information about low-cost city trees and community gardens, according to program materials.

A couple other kickoff events for the East Side hub are also in the works for February. For more information, check the Gardening Matters website. 

Source: Stephanie Hankerson, East Side Local Food Resource Hub
Writer: Anna Pratt 

St. Paul’s Frogtown Neighborhood Association (FNA) has generated a geographic information systems (GIS) map of the 5,500-household district to help it more dynamically engage the community.

The local Flat Rock Geographics helped it build the digital map, which was released in November following a couple of years of development, according to Tait Danielson Castillo, who leads the neighborhood group. “It’s about efficiency and organizing,” he says.   

The map, which was made possible through a $20,000 grant from the McKnight Foundation, allows FNA to quickly connect with people within a specific geographic area, including everything from information about who’s interested in gardening topics to crime statistics.

Most of the databases that neighborhood groups use are searchable only by person. “What we never thought about was how to categorize people based on interest and place of residence,” says Danielson Castillo.

The GIS map helps the organization get to the bottom of questions such as, “How many people would like to garden within 1,000 feet? How many water sources are nearby? How many vacant lots are within 1,000 feet?”
 
Some of the information has been manually entered in with the help of portable GPS devices, while other data may come from the city or county.

Danielson Castillo explains that it’s not about data mining, but freeing up time to make meaningful face-to-face connections. “It’s about the follow-up after we get people connected to the neighborhood organizations,” he says. “The system is only as powerful as the relationships that we build.”

Already, the system has had an impact. For example, when the city realigned the sewer system on Thomas Avenue, FNA used the map to connect with non-native English speakers, which helped avoid a potentially disastrous situation.   

Within a 24-hour period, Danielson Castillo was able to contact the street’s residents directly, sending translators where needed.

“The best system is still the phone or direct verbal contact. That’s still what we’re shooting for,” he says, adding that although social media are useful “We’re digressing in some ways, returning back to our roots and using technology at its best.”

The project’s next phase will involve maps that the public can use to learn more about current events, developments, public art projects, or the area’s history.

“We’re 90 percent sure that nobody else has used [the technology] this way,” he says. “No one else we know is using this on the community level.”   


Source: Tait Danielson Castillo, director, Frogtown Neighborhood Association
Writer: Anna Pratt

Local photographer Wing Young Huie, who is well known for his public art installations that explore everyday life in the city, is trying to line up funding for a new project, called, “We Are the Other."

It centers on strangers who cross paths within the four-neighborhood area surrounding his gallery, The Third Place, at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. He also lives in the neighborhood.

“The Other” refers to people who “know each other slightly, but for whatever reason or perceived difference there is a barrier in getting to know them well,” he states in project materials.

“We Are the Other” builds on “The University Avenue Project,” which also forged connections between near-strangers, he says.

As a part of the recent project, which turned the St. Paul avenue into a six-mile public gallery, Huie used a series of questions to prompt conversations between residents.

He asked students in a school, for example, to go outside of their social circle, and to pose questions to one another such as, "What's your favorite word?" or "How do you think others see you?"

He documented them in black-and-white photos that feature their chalkboard scribbles. 

Similarly, for his current project,Huie is bringing random people together, either on the street or at a business or a community organization, with the chalkboard.

The photographer will also host related workshops to encourage others to do the same.  

Eventually, the project, which will incorporate photos from the workshops, will take the form of a “mobile community art center,” changing locations every week or so.

Altogether, it advances the idea behind The Third Place, which is also a sociological term that describes informal places where people congregate outside of home and work.

“Making connections, getting outside of our bubble, is where the idea of 'The Other' came from,” he says.

“In the times we live in, everyone wants to be connected but it’s so difficult to be connected. This is an era that’s made face-to-face interaction difficult.”

Source: Wing Young Huie
Writer: Anna Pratt

To gauge  interest in a couple of its redevelopment projects, Plymouth-based Dominium Development and Acquisition hosted a community meeting on Jan. 9 at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis.

Dominium plans to convert two historic sites--the old Jacob Schmidt Brewery in St. Paul and Pillsbury ‘A’ Mill in Minneapolis--into artist live/work spaces. (See The Line’s stories here and here.)

With the help of PLACE, a nonprofit agency that specializes in this kind of housing, Dominium has created an online survey to get additional input.

The survey asks people to weigh in on everything from possible rent prices to amenities, to help shape the common spaces and individual units in both developments.

Owen Metz, a senior development associate at Dominium, says that the company wants to “assess the market, to see what interest there is from the arts community,” adding, “We want to find out what their motivations are for living there.”

Dominium is hoping to hear from 10,000 area artists. “We’ll use the feedback to guide and drive some of the decisions moving forward, as we design units and common spaces,” which will allow for flexibility in the design, he says.

He adds that the company is reaching out to artists working in many different media.  

Depending on the survey’s results, a photography studio, for example, could be incorporated into one or both of the housing projects.  

Whatever the reaction is, “We’ll take it to heart and try to accommodate it as much as we can,” he says.

Source: Owen Metz, senior development associate, Dominium Development
Writer: Anna Pratt

Last winter, when Matt Forrester worked in downtown Minneapolis, he often took the skyways to get around, but, at first it was challenging to find his way.

Forrester, who then worked at Thrivent Financial, frequently used the indoor walkways to get to the Minneapolis Convention Center. It took about five tries to master his route.

“It’s a terribly confusing system if you’re not there day-to-day, or if you’re not in your own office," he says.

That's where his cartography skills came in handy. Around the same time, he and his business partner, Kate Chanba, started a map-making company, Carticulate.

The existing skyway map, which the city has been using for a long time, is “really bad. There are a few things wrong,” for starters, and it’s difficult for those who are color-blind to read.

Forrester and Chanba put together an alternative skyway map to address those issues. When they published it online, it led to a huge spike on their website, he says.  

Subway maps like Harry Beck’s 1933 London Underground inspired them.

Their map shows multiple ways to get from point A to point B. Each building acts as a subway “stop” with seven different “lines,” which are color-coded.

They eliminated the background geography, such as cross streets, which helped simplify things. “Most people aren’t leaving the skyways,” he says.

Their goal is to get the map into the skyways, with some corresponding signage. “It definitely trumps any other map that’s out there,” he says, since other maps don’t clearly show connecting routes that go through multiple buildings. 

The challenge is that there’s no one entity governing the skyways.

Even though the pair moved their company to New York this month, they're staying the course. “We’d love to help out the area and benefit the city. We want to do what we can to make it better.”

Source: Matt Forrester, Carticulate
Writer: Anna Pratt

A new brewpub that takes its cues from old England,  George and the Dragon, is coming to Southwest Minneapolis. 

Fred Navarro, who co-owns the business with his wife, Stacy, says that the first hurdle was to get neighborhood approval. From there, the pair got to work on the financial side of things. “That’s been the long part of the process,” he says.

George and the Dragon will have about 1,850 square feet in a newly-constructed building that replaces  one that burned down a couple of years ago. It's a one-story structure with a brick facade and a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood feel, he says.

The retail shop Patina will join the pub in the building, along with a to-be-announced tenant.

George and the Dragon is starting from scratch, in terms of the build-out and equipment, he says.

Navarro and his wife worked closely with architect John Abbott to recreate the feel of a traditional English bar or “public house,” one that “feels like it’s been there a long time.”

“Ultimately a public house is a place for the community and for neighbors to gather,” he says. “That was kind of a driving factor for what we wanted the design to look like.” 

The Atwater-based company TimeWorn is creating a wood-paneled interior in the pub, using reclaimed wood. In the basement will be a kitchen, offices and storage, and cooler space.

Altogether, the project totals nearly $500,000, Navarro says. The couple hope to open the pub by April 1.

Source: Fred Navarro, co-owner, George and the Dragon
Writer: Anna Pratt

Mary McGreevy and Susan Bernstein, the filmmakers behind Seven and Sixty Productions, briefly documented the pluses of Twin Cities living in a short film that went viral last year, called “Why We’re Here.”

This year, the pair is building on that idea with a new film in progress that will pay homage to Minnesota winters. They were inspired in part by filmmaker Andrew Clancy’s movie titled “A Year in New York,” according to McGreevy.

“Winter is such a defining theme for us,” McGreevy says via email, adding, “We love it. We hate it. We get through it. We celebrate it. We’re both interested in the idea that we’re surrounded by beauty in our everyday lives,” a fact which, she says, often goes unnoticed.

They like the idea of putting together “small pieces of art that reach out and grab hold of people.”

They’re asking for three-to-four-minute video submissions that speak to the winter theme. Submissions are due on Feb. 13.

Skiers, ice fishing, texting with gloves on, and the iconic Winter Carnival are some examples of the kinds of things that people could shoot, the submission guidelines explain. “We're looking for work that captures the emotion and beauty of people, nature, and our surroundings in the context of winter,” the guidelines state.

The filmmakers will stitch together the most compelling images and set the whole thing to the music of a local artist. They want to “develop a collective picture of how we see it, feel about it, and live through it, to show ourselves, and to show others who don’t live here,” the guidelines say.  

Metro Magazine is sponsoring the project.

The pair is also working on a Web series that profiles colorful, quirky local personalities.

Source: Mary McGreevy, filmmaker, Seven and Sixty Productions
Writer: Anna Pratt

Kopplin’s Coffee settled into its new digs in St. Paul’s Merriam Park in late November.

In preparation for the move, Kopplin’s, which relocated from the nearby Highland Park neighborhood, remodeled the new space--a big project that totaled over $100,000, according to owner Andrew Kopplin.

The new place required a lot of painting, and now appears in shades of cream, brown, and green. Kopplin also built a “big sweeping bar” and installed new flooring. The result is casual, a blend of contemporary and traditional styles, he says.  

The coffee shop tripled in size, according to Kopplin. More space means that “We can serve customers in a better way,” he says. “Having more seating makes it easier to have people stay, sit down, and slow down,” which, he adds, is harder to pull off in a crowded space.  

The additional square footage also allows for more storage space. In the future, he hopes that it’ll provide the legroom to experiment with new drink recipes. “It frees us to do more,” he says. 

The remodeled coffee shop has already been featured in Travel + Leisure magazine as one of the country’s coolest coffeehouses.

Kopplin says that it helps to have complementary businesses nearby, such as Izzy’s Ice Cream and Sweets Bakeshop. They’re contributing to the local/sustainable "slow food" movement, which Kopplin’s advocates, he says.   

Previously, the coffee shop was somewhat isolated from other businesses. Its new address is in an area “where people are already out doing things,” he says. “The businesses around have made a huge difference. It makes it more of a destination neighborhood.”


Source: Andrew Kopplin, owner, Kopplin’s Coffee
Writer: Anna Pratt

This year, a lot of local development projects got creative.

They innovated in community engagement, replacing the typical “request for proposals” with contests. Social media tools helped to keep the conversation going beyond the traditional town hall meeting. Artists and art-making were brought into the development process in fresh ways. And technology contributed to community-building via smartphones and QR codes.

For example, early in the year, the Mississippi Riverfront Design Competition attracted 55 proposals from around the globe.

In re-imagining a portion of the riverfront in Minneapolis, the idea was to emphasize parks as an “engine for sustainable recreational, cultural, and economic development along the riverfront,” according to project materials.

Today, the effort has evolved into the Minneapolis Riverfront Development Initiative (MRDI).

On Dec. 15, MRDI held a well-attended public meeting at the Mill City Museum to discuss the possibilities for a nearby ‘Water Works’ park along the river. In the past it was the site of the city’s first water supply and fire-fighting pumping stations.

Partners in Preservation

Partners in Preservation (PIP) from American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation had a contest to award $1 million to 13 local preservation projects. The public got to help determine where the money went by voting on Facebook for their favorite projects.

Chris Morris from the National Trust for Historic Preservation said that the contest raised the profile of a number of local preservation projects. He celebrated “the impact it can have on sites that are meaningful to people in their neighborhoods.” Additionally, through creative open-house events, people “tried to involve the community and do good work.”

The Weisman Art Museum held a contest that for the redesign of the bike and pedestrian plaza outside its door, hosting public meetings with interdisciplinary design teams and exhibiting preliminary sketches and models.

Similarly, Architecture Minnesota magazine, which the American Institute of Architects Minnesota publishes, is undergoing its second annual round of Videotect, a video competition that asks participants to contemplate the built environment. The theme this time is sustainable transportation and its enhancement through design. It’ll wrap up with a screening of the videos, giving the audience a chance to weigh in.

Irrigate   

Also on the transportation theme, Irrigate is a three-year place-making initiative that aims to connect artists to community development that will accompany the coming Central Corridor light rail transit line.  Springboard for the Arts, TC LISC and the city of St. Paul received $750,000 from the national funding group ArtPlace, to set it in motion.  

Laura Zabel, who heads Springboard, said, “We really see the Central Corridor and construction as an opportunity to engage artists in a really deep way."
 
Similarly, technology tools are helping to create a sense of community. Some recently released smartphone tours feature audio segments about local landmarks, like Ranger on Call, which touches on various aspects of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area.

Others, such as Saint Paul: Code Green put people on a kind of scavenger hunt in which they scan strategically placed QR codes to learn more or advance in the “game.”

Experience Southwest’s "shop local" marketing campaign in Southwest Minneapolis also takes advantage of QR codes to direct community members to area retailers.  
 
Going forward, I expect to see more experimentation of this kind in other areas--look for it in connection with locally trending topics like bicycling, solar power and urban farming.

Anna Pratt, Development Editor

Last Thursday, the public got a chance to learn more about the current design plan for the Payne-Maryland Center on the East Side of St. Paul.

A $14 million phase one project, including a library and rec center, will begin construction next summer, according to Chris Gibbs, who is principal at HGA, the architecture firm that's working on the design.

The library and rec center will share certain spaces within the two-level building that will have 4,500 square feet.

Both the library and rec center will need educational rooms, for example. By moving into the building together, "They'll have a lot more access than they would typically have," he says.

The place will include a high-tech teen space, gym, walking track, fitness equipment and a community room.

Playgrounds and gathering spaces outdoors will also create an "urban town square that acts as a front porch for the building," he says.

To get to this latest design, the architects took in the public response, and then "We spent time looking at the existing neighborhood and the history of the architecture," he says.  

"There were issues of it feeling too big. We tried to break it down," and to make it sympathetic to the area's character.

As such, it was broken into a series of simply defined brick boxes with storefront openings.

The building could also get "small amounts of brick and exterior detailing," that reference area structures.

"It's an interesting balance between honoring the past and looking forward," he says.

Additionally, phase one is "being designed to accept phase two as seamlessly as possible," and to standalone, he says.                

A phase two development, which will involve the private partners, including the Arlington Hills Lutheran Church and Jim Bradshaw, of Bradshaw Funeral Homes, is still evolving. Right now the partners are fundraising for phase two, he says.

In general, the idea is to make it "support multi-function sharing of spaces, utilizing new technologies and enhanced sustainability, and becoming a catalyst for community connections and investment," according to city information.

Source: Chris Gibbs, HGA Architects
Writer: Anna Pratt
         

A winter bicyclist, sledders, a roofline, bare trees, and snowflakes all appear in the 150-plus-square-foot mosaic that was unveiled on Nov. 19 at Bryant Avenue Market in Southwest Minneapolis.

The nearby Volunteers of America Southwest Senior Center, which does a lot of arts-related work, secured $11,900 earlier on from the city and the Calhoun Area Residents Action Group (CARAG) to pursue the mosaic, according to Mary Ann Schoenberger, who heads the center.

Such projects are "a really great way to get people working inter-generationally," she says, adding that by making certain building improvements, "We're also giving back to the community."  

The center worked closely with CARAG to pick out the site. Bryant Avenue Market is on a prominent corner, and it had been tagged numerous times, she says. "The neighborhood association was interested in doing building improvements [on the corner]," she says.    

To come up with the design, the center held a couple of brainstorming sessions with community members while also getting feedback from an online survey.

"A lot of people wanted a winter scene," she says. "There are a lot of things that celebrate summer. People thought, 'wouldn't it be neat to celebrate winter?'"

Another theme was the city's bike-friendliness. It helped that "Bryant Avenue has a major bike path," she says.

With the guidance of artist Sharra Frank, the center hosted numerous workshops with community members over six weeks to put together the mosaic.

The 185 all-ages volunteers came from the senior center, Clara Barton Open School, Walker Place, Bryant Square Park, Optum Health, and elsewhere.

Many of them worked on the 43 snowflakes that can be individually identified.

In a piece about the mosaic she wrote for Southwest Patch, Schoenberger states that each snowflake "is a work of art in itself and we were amazed at how seven patterns could result in such diverse creations."

She has high praise for the artist, who"remained calm and the final result is amazingly professional considering how many hands were involved in the project."


Source: Mary Ann Schoenberger, executive director, Southwest Senior Center
Writer: Anna Pratt

Stone’s Throw Urban Farm, which is working to redefine local sustainable food, will expand its territory next year.

The farm was formed this fall through the merger of Uptown Farmers and Concrete Beet Farmers in Minneapolis and Pig’s Eye Urban Farm in St. Paul.  

The merger made sense because the farms shared similar beliefs and farming practices, according to Stone’s Throw farmer Alex Liebman.

“We want to sustain those business practices and we hope we do a better job because we’re more focused with our energy and time,” he says.  

Right now the farm is trying to acquire enough land to make the business financially viable--to the extent that it can pay its workers a living wage, he says.

Besides the practical financial benefits, “We all sort of were becoming good friends and sharing resources,” he says. “It’s a win-win for all of us.”

In 2012, the farm plans to convert up to 10 vacant lots in St. Paul into farmland, along with a handful of other properties in Minneapolis.

“It’s an ongoing process to try to get vacant lots and find out if the landowners are receptive to the idea of beautifying it and growing vegetables.”   

Securing land for the long term is another objective they’ll be tackling going forward.   

Liebman is optimistic about some zoning changes being discussed that will “allow us to become a legitimate land use in the city,” he says.

The changes will help farms get established in the Twin Cities. As it is, farms operate in a gray area, he says. With the new zoning rules, which still need to be approved, “There’s more legal clarity about what we can and can’t do.”  
 
Although the urban farm scene is “small and intimate,” there’s a lot of excitement about the practice, with a number of nonprofit initiatives, school programs, and community gardens doing good work.

“Any time you’re converting forsaken lots into beautiful productive spaces it’s a good thing for the community,” Liebman says, adding, “And you’re producing food that stays in the Twin Cities.”


Source: Alex Liebman, Stone’s Throw Urban Farm
Writer: Anna Pratt

Prominent radio show personality Garrison Keillor is relocating his bookstore, Common Good Books, from Western Avenue North in St. Paul to a larger storefront space at nearby Macalester College.

To make way for the bookstore, this month Macalester began a $1.2 million renovation project at the 1923 Lampert Building, which will take about four months, according to Macalester’s newspaper, The Mac Weekly.

The bookstore will fill the first floor, while the college will sell textbooks on the second floor, according to David O’Neill, marketing director for the bookstore.

Previously, the building housed the Macalester Summit-Hill Seniors Living at Home Program, the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth, and living space for retired faculty, The Mac Weekly reports.

At the existing space, “We’ve had a wonderful patronage; people come into the store and know the staff by name, and it’s a great neighborhood,” O'Neill says.

That being said, “We were landlocked as far as space. We needed a larger space.”

The bookstore will nearly double its space with 3,000 square feet. “It’ll allow us to have more titles and books,” with more shelf space.
 
Although the design is still coming together, the new bookstore will have a similar feel to the current space, with author quotes appearing here and there, and many of the current bookshelves making the move.  

“We’ll look at the floor plan and figure out how to lay it out, with places to read and hang out,” says O'Neill.

In contrast to Common Good's current basement-level location, the new place will have more natural light. The windows will also give passersby the opportunity to get a taste for what’s inside. “We encourage people to come in and spend some time there,” he says.     

Additionally, the bookstore will be able to host literary events in partnership with the school, which has lacked a trade bookstore since Ruminator Books closed in 2004, according to a prepared statement.
 
Keillor adds in the prepared statement, “It’s a good neighborhood, and with all those college students around, there’s a sense of high spirits in the air, and you need to inhale that if you’re in the book business.”
 
Source: David O’Neill, marketing director, Common Good Books
Writer: Anna Pratt