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The Funky Little Chair started with Cynthia Bleskachek’s desire to build a community around the upholstery industry through education. Now open on University Avenue in the Creative Enterprise Zone of St. Paul, The Funky Little Chair offers upholstery services and classes to individuals from all skill levels.
 
Bleskachek’s mission is to make the craft of upholstery accessible to all who want to learn. “I want this business to be able to share this industry, this craft—and make it approachable no matter how you’re coming in at it,” says Bleskachek. “I am just so excited to share everything that I love about this industry with clients, with students, and with hobbyists because I do think there’s so much beautiful furniture and too often people just don’t know what their options are.”
 
Growing up with a mother who was an upholsterer, Bleskachek saw firsthand how to take furniture apart and refresh the pieces using new fabrics and materials. When Bleskachek started working in the upholstery industry herself, she discovered that many people were curious and inquiring about what went into a re-upholstery project. Seeing an opportunity to create more transparency in the industry through education, Bleskachek began teaching upholstery classes.
 
Bleskachek explains, “If you ever got a quote from a custom upholsterer, people wanted to know why it was so expensive. Wasn’t it easy? Which is easy to think if you haven’t done [upholstery]. But through education, you are able to show people what you love about it. What it is beyond slapping fabric on it. It’s a whole craft where everything you work on is different. Every fabric is different and every piece has its own problem solving.”
 
A few of the educational opportunities offered by The Funky Little Chair include weekend workshops for those who have small do-it-yourself (DIY) projects, weekly workshops offering students a chance to work on larger, more complex projects, workshops for current or aspiring professional upholsterers, as well as free community events where activities might include a DIY Halloween costume brainstorming session or an evening of knitting and crocheting. For those who want extra help with projects, Bleskachek offers modern residential re-upholstery services.
 
In an age where consumers are inclined to purchase cheap, disposable furniture, Bleskachek understands that education is key to transforming shopping habits and helping others see the value of refreshing existing pieces of furniture. “I think there’s a lot of consumers who are trying to understand and make choices they feel good about. They need to know how. They need to know why. They need to know where. We’re excited to help crack that open a little bit.”
 
 

Earlier this month, Northeast Minneapolis-based Fair State Brewing Cooperative announced a major expansion into previously uncharted territory: St. Paul.
 
The cooperative’s 40,000-square-foot Creative Enterprise Zone production facility, just blocks from Urban Growler Brewing Company and Bang Brewing, is slated to supercharge its brewing capacity and substantially expand its distribution footprint.
 
According to CEO and co-founder Evan Sallee, the new space will start with an annual production capacity of 7,500 bbl—with room for growth, “[depending] on the eventual ale/lager mix.” Quoting Fair State management, CBS Minnesota reports that’s at least a five-fold capacity increase.

“The expansion will also give us a lot more flexibility to be creative in what we do. Our capacity to try new and interesting things is inherently limited by our commitment to keep certain core brands around all the time,” says Sallee. “Moving those brands off to a larger facility will allow us to spread our creative wings and play around a bit more while still providing the core beers that people have come to expect us to have available regularly.”
 
Those core brands include “traditional” craft beer styles like India pale ale, hefeweizen and pilsner. But after just two years of operation, Fair State has staked its claim to an underserved brewing niche: sour beers. Already on the national radar as Minnesota’s first cooperatively owned brewery, Fair State has earned national press (and awards) for its prolific sour program, which includes high(er)-volume kettle sours like Roselle and limited-release, barrel-aged beers like Paradisiac.
 
Fair State’s commitment to sour beer bled through to the design and execution of its new brewing system. “We have worked with our equipment manufacturer to design our brewing system with sour beers specifically in mind, so we will be able to turn out our kettle sours like Roselle with increased efficiency,” says Sallee.
 
Ultimately, says Sallee, Fair State’s expansion is about putting more beer in front of more people, irrespective of geography. In the short term, the brewery’s beer is likely to be available in more stores and taprooms across a wider swath of MSP. And, soon enough, Greater Minnesota customers will get their first consistent taste of its brews.
 
“One of Fair State's core missions is to bring high quality beer to more people,” he explains. “When our members in St. Paul have trouble getting beer because we can't make enough to service our back yard, that's a problem. So I hope that this project will allow us to better meet the demand locally and throughout Minnesota.”
 

 
Little Mekong Night Market, a project of the Asian Economic Development Association (AEDA) in St. Paul, just keeps gaining momentum. This year, the summer festival (Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24) takes place at the proposed Little Mekong Plaza on Western Avenue to bring in more vendors and artists. The market also includes an artwalk showcasing the exhibition “MANIFEST: Refugee Roots” inside the recently opened Western U Plaza—a community-driven, transit-oriented development. Get your Green Line light-rail pass here.
 
The exhibition will feature local artists and cultural groups, including Koua Mai Yang, Ifrah Mansour, the Somali Museum, the Immigrant History Research Center and an art mandala by monks of the Gyuto Wheel of Dharma Monastery. This year’s market includes another new feature: a kid-zone with interactive exhibits from the Minnesota Children’s Museum, Mobile Comedy Suitcase and sParkit Lantern Making. Three stages throughout the market will showcase performances by Hmong artists, such as LOTT, Jayanthi Kyle, Mu Daiko and Mayda.
 
For those new to the area, “Little Mekong is the Asian business and cultural district in Saint Paul, Minnesota,” according to Little Mekong’s website. “Located between Mackubin and Galtier streets along University Avenue, the district boasts a diversity of cultures, top rated restaurants and unique shopping experiences. Visitors come to Little Mekong to experience the unique culture and flavors of Southeast Asia.”
 
 

The City of Minneapolis is launching a free technical assistance program for budding co-op founders, starting with a two-hour presentation on April 20th.
 
Dubbed C-TAP (Cooperative Technical Assistance Program), the initiative is an outgrowth of the city’s successful B-TAP (Business Technical Assistance Program) for aspiring small and midsize business owners. Like B-TAP, C-TAP is an immersive program designed to support co-op founders and supporters from ideation through opening—and, in some cases, beyond.
 
According to the City of Minneapolis, C-TAP will unfold over three years, in three steps.
 
Step one, happening this year, focuses on “co-op readiness planning” for “groups that are thinking of forming a Co-op…to get a clear picture of the legal, operational and organizational requirements.” It’s basically a crash course in what it means to start a co-op.
 
Step two, set for next year, will focus on “board member and organizational design.” That means training prospective board members in the basics (and nuances) of co-op governance, as well as “one-on-one technical assistance” for select co-ops that require guidance designing their organizational structures. Step two is available to not-yet-open co-ops and existing co-ops that want or need outside assistance.
 
Step three, set for 2018, will revolve around “sustainability [and] profitability.” In other words, setting and keeping newly opened co-ops on the path to stable, long-term profitability and prosperity.
 
C-TAP’s kickoff event, a two-hour presentation dubbed “The State of Co-ops in Minneapolis,” is scheduled for April 20, 5:30-7:30 p.m., at Open Book in Downtown East. The presentation will discuss the city’s current “co-op inventory” and the industries supported by Minneapolis co-ops, introduce and explain C-TAP, and discuss next steps for co-op founders and principals interested in participating.
 
On May 11, Step one officially gets underway with an eight-week “co-op feasibility” course. Held at the City of Minneapolis Innovation Center in the Crown Roller Mill Building near City Hall, the course’s eight sessions will cover the basics of the co-op development process, co-op business plans, finances, cooperative governance, legalities and other topics. Registration is free and open to the public, but prospective co-op groups need to have at least two participants and have selected a product or service to offer prior to signing up.
 
The City of Minneapolis is no stranger to co-op support. According to city government, Minneapolis has plowed some $3.5 million into local co-ops through existing development and support initiatives, and has an additional $850,000 outstanding in loans to three in-development co-ops—including Wirth Cooperative Grocery, a first-of-its-kind grocery co-op in the city’s underserved Northside, slated to open later this year.
 

If WOODCHUCK USA’s widely shared Instagram post is to be believed, it took the ascendant woodworking company all night to move its headquarters in late March. But they didn’t go too far: WOODCHUCK moved just 500 feet — give or take — down 9th St SE in Minneapolis’ Marcy-Holmes neighborhood. The company’s destination? The old RyKrisp factory, which WOODCHUCK founder Ben VandenWylemenberg purchased with three other partners a few months back.
 
The sprawling, low-slung building is becoming a 21^st-century fabrication hub with a decidedly local maker flavor. WOODCHUCK USA is the main tenant, but other small-scale makers have already moved (burrowed?) in and set up shop, including a video production company (HECCO). WOODCHUCK has designs on about 30 percent of the space, leaving the balance for smaller tenants.
 
“We had been looking for the right building for our business and other businesses committed to building the economy with American-made products,” VandenWylemenberg told Kevyn Burger of Minnesota Business back in January, shortly after closing on the property. According to VandenWylemenberg, the property’s convenient location between the dense St. Anthony Main area and the I-35W/University Ave/4th St SE interchange is a perfect fit with WOODCHUCK’s hip vibe and distribution needs.
 
The location is also probably an asset as WOODCHUCK ramps up hiring. The company had about 30 employees as of earlier this year, but as orders accelerate, the headcount is likely to rise sharply.
 
WOODCHUCK first made its name in wooden phone cases. Its rapidly expanding wooden accessory lineup now includes flasks, bottle openers, coasters, money clips, electronics sleeves and even maps. WOODCHUCK sells direct through its website, and to a growing lineup of retail partners: boutique stores, high-end chains, and big box stores (including MSP-area Targets) as far away as California, South Florida and New England.
 
According to the Pioneer Press, the RyKrisp factory closed in early 2015, after parent company ConAgra decided that the market for RyKrisp’s distinctive — some would say woody-tasting— crackers wasn’t salvageable.
 
Ironically, just as VandenWylemenberg and his partners were doing their due diligence on the old RyKrisp plant, word came (via the Star Tribune) that three former Pillsbury executives had purchased the cracker brand. The beloved (to some) crackers are likely to find a second life, with a relaunch coming as early as this year — though the new manufacturing facility won’t be located in MSP.
 

Three Twin Cities nonprofits have received Creative Placemaking grants from the Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). Part of a national LISC grantmaking program funded by The Kresge Foundation, the grants went to Juxtaposition Arts in North Minneapolis, and the Asian Economic Development Association and African Economic Development Solutions in St. Paul.

LISC's Creative Placemaking program focuses on five metro areas across the country, including the Twin Cities. It aims to drive dollars into arts-related businesses and cultural activities that will help transform some of America’s most distressed neighborhoods into safe, vibrant places of economic opportunity.

"We’re happy to be part of this national program that supports arts and culture in community and economic development," says Kathy Mouacheupao, creative placemaking program officer at Twin Cities LISC. "Over the past couple of years, we’ve learned a lot about the impact of the arts in addressing the physical and cultural displacement of communities and are excited to expand this work to support partners along the Green Line and North Minneapolis."

The grants will support strategies that create jobs, reduce blight, attract patrons and visitors, and build a strong sense of community among residents. In the Twin Cities, African Economic Development Solutions will use its $25,000 grant to hire an artist organizer and to fund an expanded Little Africa Festival in August 2016. The Asian Economic Development Association will use its $40,000 grant to develop retail space for local artisans to sell their products in Little Mekong and to train local fashion-based Asian artists in business development. Juxtaposition Arts will use its $40,000 grant to fund the predevelopment stage of its textile lab renovation and to further its Tactical Urbanism program, which uses arts and cultural events as interventions to address community challenges in North Minneapolis.

"This LISC support will help the Little Mekong District inspire, invigorate and celebrate the authenticity, diversity, and creativity of our Asian communities and local neighborhoods," says Oskar Ly, artist organizer at the Asian Economic Development Association. "We'll not only be elevating our unique art and cultural assets, but fostering long-term prosperity for our communities."
 

The Green Line corridor isn’t the only area of MSP experiencing a boom in community-driven development. Two miles northwest of the Green Line’s Target Field terminus, at the heavily trafficked Penn Avenue/Golden Valley Road intersection in North Minneapolis’ Willard-Hay neighborhood, an ambitious mixed-use project is taking shape: The Commons at Penn Avenue.  
 
A four-story, block-long structure, Commons at Penn will house 45 units of workforce housing, a host of community amenities and the 4,000 square foot Wirth Cooperative Grocery Store — MSP’s newest grocery co-op. Watson-Forsberg and LHB Corporation are co-developing the project.
 
Building Blocks, a North Minneapolis nonprofit founded and overseen by native son (and former NBA star) Devean George, designed and financed Commons at Penn. Wirth Co-op is financed independently, thanks in part to a $500,000 federal grant, and will lease space in Commons at Penn’s ground floor.
 
If the current schedule holds, Commons at Penn and Wirth Co-op should open in spring 2016 — well in advance of the planned Penn Avenue BRT (C Line)’s debut later this decade.
 
“We’re shooting for an Earth Day opening for the co-op,” says Miah Ulysse, Wirth’s general manager.
 
The development will join nearby Broadway Flats in providing affordable housing and locally run retail along North Minneapolis’ densely populated Penn Avenue corridor.
 
According to Building Blocks, Commons at Penn’s residential component will feature a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units with touches common in downtown lofts: hardwood floors and nine-foot ceilings. Amenities include community rooms, an onsite fitness center and three laundry rooms.
 
Commons at Penn’s first floor will include a Northpoint Health & Wellness office. Though the Northpoint office won’t be a full-service clinic — the focus is on “community outreach with space for events and health education classes,” according to Building Blocks — the design does include two “flexible-use exam rooms.” Building Blocks will office in an adjacent suite.
 
Wirth Co-op’s arrival is another boost for the area, often considered a food desert: The closest full-service grocery store is the Cub Foods at Broadway and I-94, well over a mile to the east. Corner convenience stores and gas stations stock essentials and plenty of snack foods, but rarely fresh fruits, veggies or non-processed foods. According to TCYIMBY, about 40 percent of Wirth’s fresh food will be certified organic or natural; that proportion could increase as the co-op establishes itself in the neighborhood.
 
“Locally sourced items will be a huge focus for us, in addition to organic and natural,” says Ulysse.
 
As of mid-October, the most recent reporting date, Wirth Co-op had about 460 committed members out of a 500-member goal. Membership is $100 (one-time) per household, payable in $25 installments, and $15 for those qualifying for public assistance.
 

Good Grocer, an independent grocery store tucked into a low-slung building near the old Kmart at Lake Street and I-35W, has only been open since mid-June. Yet it’s already received coverage in a half-dozen press outlets, from the Star Tribune and the Huffington Post.
 
What makes Good Grocer different? Founded by Kurt Vickman, long-serving (now former) pastor at Edina’s Upper Room Church, Good Grocer is part co-op, part nonprofit social enterprise and all good.
 
According to its website, Good Grocer stocks more than 3,000 items, focusing mostly on fresh fruits and vegetables, and minimally processed meats, dairy and baked goods. Unlike a traditional co-op, whose members pay fees on joining, Good Grocer regulars pay for their memberships by volunteering at least 2.5 hours per month at the store: stocking shelves, working checkout, whatever needs to be done. In return, they get 25 percent discounts to sticker price on everything they buy at the store that month. Good Grocer has at least 300 members and counting.
 
The goal, says Vickman, is inside-out empowerment — the inverse of the standard outside-in, or top-down, charity model. Though Vickman doesn’t keep detailed statistics on members’ economic status, the immediate neighborhood is among Minneapolis’ poorest precincts.
 
Good Grocer helps locals who “value eating well, but can’t afford the ever-increasing cost of food” to partake in a food quality experience usually reserved for Whole Foods shoppers. By giving members an outlet to give back to their fellow shoppers in a tangible way, Good Grocer is literally helping people help themselves.
 
“Low-income people aren’t helpless or giftless,” says Vickman. “We all have gifts and strengths within us. It’s [Good Grocer’s] mission to draw those gifts and strengths out of our members and empower them to define themselves in terms of their potential, not their limitations.”
 
Good Grocer also addresses its densely populated environs’ glaring lack of fresh food options. Its corner of South Minneapolis doesn’t meet the technical definition of “food desert,” but the Midtown Global Market and the Uptown Cub — the closest reliable sources for fresh food — aren’t close at hand.
 
“We thought we’d get some positive feedback about our choice of location,” says Vickman, “but we were really taken aback by the number of people who came in to say, ‘Man, thank you for opening a grocery store here.’”
 
Then again, Good Grocer isn’t a straightforward charity. The blocks to the north and west of Good Grocer are economically diverse — and, in some areas, downright affluent — so a fair number of locals can afford to shop at the store without much regard to price. Good Grocer counts on those folks to patronize the store in numbers and pay full price for their purchases. Full-price customers subsidize in-need members who rely on the 25 percent discount and ensure that Good Grocer can afford to stock top-quality food items.
 
Indeed, Vickman sees Good Grocer as a low-friction way for people of means to give back in a more meaningful way than simply donating some cans to a food pantry or church around the holidays. The store’s motto is “Let us never tire of doing good,” a Scriptural reference to Christians’ charitable duties. That motto neatly summarizes Vickman’s choice to leave his relatively comfortable appointment at Upper Room and strike out as a social entrepreneur.
 
“I decided that I wanted to spend more of my time living the themes I was preaching, rather than just talking about them,” he explains.
 
Despite Good Grocer’s ecclesiastical pedigree, the store is strictly non-denominational — non-religious, actually. “No one’s handing out tracts at the door,” says Vickman, who notes that the store’s membership base is a reflection of the neighborhood’s racial and denominational diversity: first- and second-generation immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa shop and volunteer alongside the area’s established European and African-American residents.
 
“We’re not looking for help or support from outside the community here,” says Vickman. “We’re proud to be creating our own solutions.”
 
 
 

There’s something brewing next to the “white hot” Highlight Center in Northeast Minneapolis — but there’s more to it than beer.
 
Able Seedhouse and Brewery chose to open in MSP’s dense craft beer market, but Able’s concept is unusual even by Northeast’s ambitious standards. Able, which occupies an historic brick structure adjacent to the Highlight Center (just off busy Broadway Street), isn’t only a new Minneapolis craft brewery with a 20-barrel brewing capacity and 100-plus-patron taproom. It’s also a craft malthouse.
 
Able officially opened its doors in early November and malts its own small grains on site. In other words, the Able crew cooks raw ingredients — mostly barley, but sometimes wheat and rye — in one corner of the facility, then carts the finished product over to the brewing kettles and turns it into delicious beer.
 
Able isn’t a totally self-sufficient operation, at least not at the outset. Casey Holley, co-founder and co-owners, anticipates the brewery’s initial batches — the first of which started brewing on October 9 — will contain up to 5 percent “in-house malt.” The balance will come from larger, more established malting houses, like Shakopee’s Rahr Malting. Over time, Holley hopes the proportion of house-made malt will increase.
 
“Producing an entire batch of beer using only our own malt would be something spectacular,” he says.
 
Holley is particularly excited about Able’s budding relationships with small-time Minnesota farmers. He’s reaching out to family farmers across the state and offering to pay a premium for their barley, which typically commands far less than the corn and soybeans that dominate Minnesota’s agricultural industry. Even though Able’s product is liquid and strictly adults-only, the brewery’s efforts help support long-depressed market for small grains.
 
“We’re doing our part to rebuild the local food supply chain,” says Holley. “We thought it would be super interesting to tell this story in beer.”
 
For the time being, the Able team is focused on navigating the opening rush. Eventually, Able’s malting operation could win out. Holley and his cofounders have contemplated serving as a small-scale “maltster” for other MSP breweries, offering an alternative — possibly with a more experimental bent — to major players like Rahr. He’s also game for helping smaller-scale packaged food producers with time-consuming, labor-intensive and frequently expensive R&D work.
 
“We could be someone that [packaged food producers] come to and say, ‘Can you play with this in the malter and see how it turns out?’” says Holley.
 

Mention the FOOD BUILDING and eyebrows invariably rise in concert with the reply, “At the state fairgrounds?”
 
But as butcher Mike Phillips of Red Table Meat Co., and cheese maker Rueben Nilsson of The Lone Grazer Creamery continue to gain traction—both are housed in Kieran Folliard’s latest venture, the FOOD BUILDING in Northeast Minneapolis—that’ll change.
 
Plus, in November, the opening of a new deli and restaurant, The Drafthorse (formerly The Workhorse), which will showcase the meat and cheese being produced down the hall, will bring people in to taste just how fine and fast MSP is growing as a hub for urban food production.
 
The Drafthorse, says chef Luke Kyle (also chef and co-owner of Anchor Fish and Chips), will be a cozy 40- to 45-seat restaurant specializing in slow-roasted meats and potpies. “I’m originally from Ireland,” says Kyle, who as a teenager moved to the Twin Cities with his family, “and one of my favorite things is to sit down with family and friends at the end of the night over comfort food made with good ingredients prepared well.”
 
The eatery will also have a deli showcasing products from Red Table and Lone Grazer, and grab-and-go food. “We'll be doing classic European-style baguette sandwiches with meat, cheese and butter,” Kyle says. “No frills, just letting the ingredients shine through.”
 
The Drafthorse takes its name from the building’s original use: as a stable and veterinary clinic for the horses that hauled kegs of beer from the local breweries to pubs and stores. “Each horse had its own window on the side of building, for fresh air and to look out, which are still here,” Kyle says.
 
The horse ties were still on the wall when Kyle and his team—including Geoff King of Scratch Food Truck, who will head up the kitchen, Katie Kyle, who recently left her Spyhouse Coffee Roasters operations and management position, and Anne Saxton, who currently works for Kim Bartmann's restaurants—moved in and started construction. “The Drafthorse is a good strong name for the restaurant and relevant to the building,” Kyle says.
 
If all goes according to plan, the FOOD BUILDING may be welcoming another tenant soon: a flour miller. “So ideally, if they move in, the baguettes, meat and cheese will all be produced in the building itself, which is super local,” Kyle says. “That’s the whole idea behind the FOOD BUILDING,” which bills itself as a “destination food production hub.”
 
According to Saxton, the FOOD BUILDING is built on foundation brands bound together by a shared purpose: “to handcraft exceptional foods close to the source because food tastes best when it has a ‘taste of place’.” The venture also gives new meaning to “farm to table movement,” Kyle says. “It’s about getting to know where your food comes from, the farmers and animals who make it, and what you’re eating—with no blind spots.”

The bourgeoning craft booze scene in MSP isn’t all about microbreweries, in case you were wondering. Ever since the Minnesota Legislature dropped the fees required to open a craft distillery, then allowed for cocktail rooms in which to serve the liquor produced onsite, distilleries have been popping up around the metro.
 
One of the newest is Tattersall Distillery, which is tucked into a former manufacturing/event space down a bumpy dirt road behind the Thorp Building in Northeast Minneapolis. In looking for a location, says Jon Kreidler, one of Tattersall’s co-owners, “After seeing Bauhaus Brewery,” which is off Central Avenue behind the Crown Center complex, “we knew it could be done”—meaning a hideaway location was do-able. “Then when we saw the space: wow!”
 
The cavernous room that once hosted light manufacturing, fashion shows and art sales for Midway Contemporary Art had a lot of potential, which Minneapolis designers Aaron Wittkamper and Amy Reiff fully released. Banks of clerestory windows were uncovered to light up the raw space. A glass wall was inserted between the cocktail room and production area, where the Tattersall logo curves across the back wall.
 
In the cocktail room, a carved wood mantel anchors the bar against a wall of plywood panels with painted reveals. The chandelier over the bar contrasts with a long cement high-top table, but adds pizzazz to a space also furnished with comfy club chairs. “We wanted to create a fresh and unpretentious space,” Wittkamper says.
 
In fact, the eclectic furnishings were sourced from 1 King’s Lane and Restoration Hardware—as well as “Craig’s List and the in-laws,” Wittkamper says. Reiff worked on the branding, using the Tattersall plaid not only in the logo but also on the bottle labels and “in subtle ways by using similar menswear fabrics throughout the space,” she says.
 
As for the booze: Tattersall’s lineup includes vodka, gin, white whiskey and aquavit. The cocktail room’s topnotch bartenders—trained by co-owner Dan Oskey, award-winning bartender formerly of Strip Club Meat & Fish in St. Paul and Hola Arepa in Minneapolis, and partner in the bitters company Easy & Oskey—readily whip up an assortment of drinks with house-crafted infusions.
 
“When we started designing the space, we knew things weren’t quite right,” Kreidler says. “Then when we brought in Aaron, he totally flipped the plans upside down and suddenly we knew how the space would work.” With a spacious cocktail room overlooking the production area, foodtrucks at the ready outside, an outdoor area for eating and drinking during warm weather, and fresh craft cocktails, Tattersall has set a new standard for the craft distillery movement in MSP.
 
 
 

St. Paul aquaponics firm Urban Organics just finalized the purchase of an 80,000-square-foot building on the redeveloped Schmidt Brewery site, according to Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal. The site will likely house an aquaponic (“aquaculture”) system that produces lettuce and other greens year-round without soil or fertilizer.
 
Though decision-makers are mum on the details, Urban Organics also appears to be deepening its already robust partnership with Pentair, an MSP-based corporate giant that builds innovative water filtration and recycling systems. (The company is responsible for Target Field’s thrifty irrigation infrastructure, among other highly visible projects.) Pentair designed and built the aquaponics system in Urban Organics’ Hamm’s facility.
 
According to the Business Journal, the Schmidt Building’s actual buyer is a newly formed entity called Urban Organics Pentair Group. Urban Organics Pentair Group shares an address with a Pentair satellite office, suggesting that the larger firm is playing an active role in Urban Organics’ new project.
 
It’s unclear whether the Schmidt purchase presages a series of collaborations between Urban Organics and Pentair. In previous conversations with The Line, Urban Organics co-founder Fred Haberman has expressed optimism that aquaponics systems as large as 500,000 square feet — several times the size of the planned Schmidt facility — would be technologically feasible and profitable within a decade.
 
Regardless of its implications for Urban Organics’ future, the Schmidt transaction adds a second historic brewery location to Urban Organics’ expanding corporate footprint, following the company’s flagship facility at the old Hamm’s Brewery. It’s also a huge win for MSP’s booming urban agriculture scene, and proof that small-scale, sustainable food production systems can play a role in fixing what Haberman calls “the [United States’] broken food system.”
 
Business is “innovating at the wrong end of our food system,” says Haberman, pointing to heavily processed snack foods with little resemblance to naturally occurring, nutritious ingredients. “The real need is for innovation to create more sustainable modes of production.”
 
Urban Organics’ food production system is definitely sustainable. According to Haberman, aquaponics uses just 98 percent less water than traditional irrigation. Since much of the United States’ fresh produce is grown in the water-starved Southwest, Urban Organics’ water-sipping, locally operated technology is a huge advantage.
 
And since Urban Organics uses fish to clear waste from its tanks, the growing process doesn’t produce industrial quantities of harmful runoff — another advantage over non-organic, soil-based agriculture.
 
“By itself, aquaponics won’t solve the problems facing modern agriculture,” says Haberman. But Urban Organics’ ambitious vision for a more sustainable agricultural future is nonetheless worth celebrating — and the new Schmidt space marks a major milestone on the company’s journey.
 
 
 

Last summer, the Little Mekong Night Market, a project of the Asian Economic Development Association (AEDA) in St. Paul, debuted, introducing the Twin Cities to the vibrancy of the markets that are a common occurrence across Asia. “There’s a unique vibe and energy that happens when people are hanging out at night, in the summer, at a festive event that’s intergenerational and family friendly,” says artist organizer Oskar Ly, who helped coordinate last year’s night markets.
 
In fact, MSP’s first night market, Ly recalls, was such a hit that “people kept coming back with their families and friends to check out all the night markets in Little Mekong. People have said they felt as though they were transported into a different country for the evening.”
 
This year, the Little Mekong Night Market will be held Friday, August 7, from 6 p.m. to midnight, and Saturday, August 8, from 4 p.m. to midnight. The location, however, has changed. “We’re moving the night market from the parking lot behind Mai Village to the street, and closing off Western Avenue from Charles to Aurora,” says Jeffrey Whitman, event manager, Little Mekong Night Market, AEDA.
 
“We’re also moving the main stage across the street into a parking lot, so we have more space to spread out,” he adds. “Last year, we were really tucked into a nook. Surveys showed that people needed more room, and also wanted to have greater exposure and catch more passersby off the Green Line. We listened.”
 
This year’s vendors will include Dangerous Productions (a nonprofit performing arts group), the fashion truck Style A Go-Go, novelty accessories by Designs by RedFireFly, Luce Quilts, Nuclear Nectar’s hot sauces, Pho-Ger’s kimchee fries, Lilly Bean Ice Desserts, LolaRosa's Filipino-inspired food, RedGreen Rivers’ traditional Hmong fair trade crafts, and Silhouette Bakery’s sweet and savory Japanese buns.
 
Also, Ly says, “We’re expanding the diversity of arts that will be showcased. We have 100 groups of artists, art activities, and traditional and contemporary performances planned.”

Performances by Mayda, Str8 2th, Hmong Breakers Leadership Council, Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli, Capoeira Fitness Academy,
Hmong Cultural Center Qeej Troupe, Xibaba Brazilian and World Jazz are scheduled. The arts activities will be spearheaded by Humans of Night Market by Hmongkee Business, Greetings from Night Market by Hmongkee Business, SparkIt,
Chicks on Sticks, Hoop Jams and other groups.

The Little Mekong Night Market was started last year as part of AEDA’s mission to help small and micro-businesses take off and flourish. “The night market is really about buying local, from people who live in the neighborhood,” Whitman says. “Some of the vendors come from outside the community, but the majority of them live and work right here. The market supports the neighborhood and brings in people to see what Little Mekong has to offer.”
 
In addition to functioning as an economic development initiative, Ly adds that the market is also a “placemaking effort for Little Mekong. It’s part of our rebranding of the district, in order to further revitalize the area, bring in new visitors, and entice people to come back—again and again.”
 

 
 
Tod Elkins, principal of UrbanWorks, likens University Avenue to a “Miracle Mile,” referring to the many thoroughfares across the United States that have become bustling shopping, entertainment and cultural destinations. University was once a major retail corridor and will be again, Elkins says.
 
“In the future, University will become similar to Washington D.C.’s Orange Line. New large retail and apartment developments have reinvigorated that transit way. I’m surprised University has taken as long as it has to take off, but sometime soon it will look that way, too.”
 
A new mixed-used project at 2700 University, at the corner of University and Emerald avenues at the Westgate Green Line light-rail station, is a leap forward. Designed by Elkins and his team at UrbanWorks Architecture, for Flaherty & Collins Properties, the LEED Silver, amenity rich development broke ground Monday.
 
“Historically, we’ve learned that to create vibrant neighborhoods, you should lead with housing,” Elkins says. “You need to have households, then bring in retail and offices, so throughout the day and year, people are active and on the street.”
 
Located between the St. Paul neighborhood of St. Anthony Park and Prospect Park in Minneapolis, 2700 University will be a six-story building with 248 apartments, 3,000 square feet of retail space and two levels of underground parking. The project will also have a saltwater swimming pool, sundeck with cabanas, cyber café, pet grooming area, and bicycle repair station with indoor bike parking, bike stands, pumps, tools, water bottle filling station and workbench.
 
Moreover, 20 percent of the living units are designated affordable or “workforce housing,” Elkins says. “To me, workforce housing means for people who work in retail in front of the house, making $12 - $14 an hour. Or artists. Or not the lawyers, but the support staff in the office, along with recent college grads or empty nesters moving in from the suburbs. In other words, the people of the community.” Legally, affordable housing is designed for people who earn 50 percent or less of the area median income.
 
Those workforce units will also be integrated throughout the building, Elkins adds, “to ensure a healthy societal mix of residents.” The building’s transit amenities also contribute to the building’s “architecture of well-being,” he continues. “Whatever we can design in to get people out of their cars and walking, bicycling or using transit — especially when we’re designing urban infill buildings — we strive to do.”
 
UrbanWorks’ design adheres to St. Paul Sustainability Building Guidelines — the City of St. Paul is a financial partner in the project — and includes locally sourced materials, energy efficient systems, LED lighting, doorstep access to light-rail transit, and as many bicycle racks as car parking spaces.
 
While the large site sat unused for many years, the City of St. Paul kept searching for a clear vision with affordable housing and retail, as well as a landmark that could serve as a gateway building to St. Paul. To that end, the building, which amply fulfills all of the city’s criteria, will include signage spelling out “St. Paul” on the rooftop facing Minneapolis.
 
 
 
 

Three years ago, the Northeast Investment Cooperative (NEIC) was created to allow people to collectively buy, renovate, and manage commercial and residential property. Despite a mix of restaurants and retail businesses on Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis, and the adaptive reuse of former industrial buildings into the immensely popular 612 Broadway and Crown Center nearby, the area has a history of rundown storefronts and absentee landlords. NEIC is changing all that.
 
With nearly $300,000 in member investments, and having transformed 2504-06 at the corner of Central and Lowry avenues into a successful building with thriving tenants, NEIC is sharing its innovative cooperative model nationally. Already, in New York City, inspired residents formed their own co-op modeled after NEIC — NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative — and more than 200 people immediately invested.
 
In February, an article in Yes! Magazine about NEIC went viral. Since then, the first commercial-property cooperative in the United States has been happily fielding inquiries from groups across the country, and board members will be speaking at conferences in St. Louis, Phoenix and Milwaukee on NEIC’s innovative business model. The appeal, explains Loren Schirber, a NEIC board member, is the opportunity to make a difference locally.
 
“People who have a vested interest in their neighborhood see the cooperative, commercial real estate model as an accessible way to make that difference and get a lot of other people involved,” Schirber says, and there’s more. “Kickstarter, Go Fund Me, Facebook and other social media and crowdfunding sites have changed how we do marketing and communications, so real estate investment opportunities are becoming more localized and accessible to people. This is the next logical step, because people don’t simply donate, they see where their money goes, what it’s doing and take ownership in the process.”
 
The cooperative real estate model also takes our new cultural emphasis on the local and bespoke — whether beer, food or handmade goods — further, Schirber continues. “How you save for retirement or invest is a logical extension of trying to be more conscious of what to do with your money and the influence you have. So with NEIC, we tackled an eyesore in the neighborhood we wanted to see changed. That resonated with local people…. and word traveled.”
 
Through NEIC’s cooperative structure, any Minnesota resident could join for $1,000. They could also invest more by purchasing non-voting stock. After a year of seeking investors, NEIC purchased two buildings on Central Avenue. Aki’s BreadHaus and Fair State Brewing Cooperative opened in 2014. NEIC’s partner, Recovery Bike Shop, is located next door. In total, the project represents more than a million dollars in new investment on Central Avenue.
 
“We spent thousands of hours getting started, fine tuning our bylaws, figuring out our structures, setting things up,” Schirber says. “Sharing that information with other groups, to make the process easier for them, is a principal of cooperative ownership.” So far, groups located in places from Seattle to Silver Spring, Maryland, Northern California to Cincinnati, Ohio, Texas to Washington D.C., have contacted NEIC for information.
 
Meanwhile, NEIC is avidly seeking a second property to bring to investors, and holding three information sessions and happy hours to discuss past successes and future plans: 
June 4: Info session at Eastside Food Co-op (7-8 p.m.), happy hour at Fair State Brewing Co-op (8-9 p.m.)
July 16: Info session at Narobi Market (7-8 p.m.), happy hour at Fair State Brewing Co-op (8-9 p.m.)
August 13: Info session at TBD (7-8 p.m.), happy hour at Fair State Brewing Co-op (8-9 p.m.)
 
“People have plenty of opportunities to become a minority investor,” Schirber says. “But from a tenant, investment and neighborhood standpoint, a cooperative model offers people more accessibility, control, ownership and a tangible reason for success.”