Buzz

Restaurants are leading a commercial boom in the Minneapolis Warehouse District, thanks to the Minnesota Twins' new Target Field, the Star Tribune reports.

"The weak economy and credit freeze may have stalled some major development deals in the neighborhood, and the economic benefits from the ballpark--if they materialize--may not ripple to office and housing markets for years. But the number of new investments in restaurants, considered the front-line retail businesses, has some real estate pros calling the ballpark 'a game changer.'

"'The Warehouse District is going through a metamorphosis. It really is,' said Andrea Christenson, a retail broker at Cassidy Turley."

Read the full story here.

The Atlantic magazine's website interviews Lynn Willenbring, CIO at the City of Minneapolis, about USI Wireless' experience working in Minneapolis.

"Today, Minneapolis is one of few American cities whose WiFi plans are actually succeeding. Minneapolis studied the missteps of other urban networks before signing a 10-year contract with Minnesota-based USI Wireless. The private company manages and profits from the 59-square-mile Wireless Minneapolis network, while the city leverages it to deliver government services and build digital inclusion.

"Minneapolis CIO Lynn Willenbring told The Atlantic how her city's wireless network helped Minneapolis through a disaster even before it was built. She also talked to us about bridging the digital divide and letting for-profit companies do what they do best."

Read the full story here.

In its ninth decade, the modest Ran-Ham Bowling Center in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood faces the announced end to its existence, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports. Fans of the place are protesting the threatened non-renewal of Ran-Ham's lease, while the landlord isn't saying what might take its place.

"So, the Highland Park landmark--set in a basement at Randolph and Hamline avenues, its entrance sandwiched between the Nook tavern and Kopplin's coffeehouse--might have already scored its last frame.

"And while there's no crime in not renewing a lease, it doesn't mean fans of the Ran-Ham have to be happy about it.

"'It would be a real shame for it to disappear,' said Tim Jennen.

"Jennen, marketing manager at the Grand Avenue art supply store Wet Paint, said the store has had holiday parties at the bowling alley for 17 years.

"'I often liken it to Mickey's or the Dari-ette, that's one of those local places that really says something about St. Paul,' he said.

'It's a treasure.'"

Read the full story here.

Storefront-In-A-Box gets a mention on the BoingBoing blog this week. The experimental retail endeavor at 2441 Lyndale Ave. in Minneapolis is offering merchants a chance to set up shop for one week, one week only, for $200. The storefront will rotate weekly most of the summer, until August when a longer-term tenant, Boneshaker Books, moves into the space. Next week, it's Nerd Party week, when "you'll have a chance to partake in everything from a 'Freaks and Geeks' marathon and a Linux Workshop, to a costume contest and Power Point karaoke."

See the entire BoingBoing discussion here.

And read what the Star Tribune's Kara McGuire wrote last month here.

Working Mother magazine has once again named General Mills one of the Best Companies for Multicultural Women.

Multicultural women are just 7 percent of the company's U.S. workforce, but they made up 18 percent of last year's salaried hires, 16 percent of management hires, and 23 percent of rehires. Nine out of ten multicultural women who work at General Mills said the company supports diversity.

The company brings in executive coaches to work with high-performing Hispanic, African-American, and Asian managers. It also has a "co-mentoring" program that pairs senior executives with director-level women and people of color.

"If a woman of color has a thirst for learning and a focus on results, this is the place for her," Kelly Baker, General Mills' vice president for human resources, tells Working Mother.

Read the entire report here.

Kiplinger's has named Rochester, Minn., one of the 10 Best Cities for the Next Decade.

The personal finance magazine says it focused its list on cities that specialize in "out-of-the-box thinking" and show the three key elements for innovation: smart people, great ideas, and collaboration.

Rochester "is growing like a beanstalk--a high-tech, health-care, hospitality beanstalk," the magazine writes.

It cites the Mayo Clinic and its synergy with other civic institutions such as the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics and the Minnesota BioBusiness Center.

Read the entire article here.

What do Lady Gaga, Jamie Oliver and Best Buy's Kal Patel have in common?

They're all on Fast Company's list of The 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2010.

Patel, president for Asia Best Buy, appears at No. 65 on the list.

"If Best Buy were a Rorschach test, Kal Patel would see a venture-capital firm rather than a big-box electronics store. Before being named to run the Minneapolis-based retailer's Asia operations, Patel spent seven years getting the company to behave like a Silicon Valley incubator."

As a result, the company is more experimental today. The retailer lets employees try out ideas on a small scale before they require a significant investment. Examples include electric vehicle sales and its use of Twitter for customer service.

Read the entire list here.

Computerworld writes about how health care is beginning to incorporate Web 2.0 services into patient care, and the story leads with an example from a Minnesota provider.

University of Minnesota Medical Center/Fairview has 36 physicians who are trying out software that lets them video- conference and instant-message with patients online. The software is from a Boston company called American Well.

The services are available to those who carry BlueCross and BlueShield of Minnesota insurance through their employers, and can be accessed between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends for a $10 or $20 co-pay.

"We're getting very positive feedback from patients," Dr. Eric Christianson, assistant medical director of the emergency room, tells Computerworld.

Read the entire article here.

Minneapolis is the sixth greenest city in the world according to a new ranking by Mercer consulting.

The city placed sixth on Mercer's new "Eco-City" ranking, part of its 2010 Quality of Living Worldwide survey.

The Eco-City ranking is based on water availability, water potability, waste removal, sewage, air pollution, and traffic congestion. Mercer identified the criteria as important for employees on long-term assignments abroad.

Calgary was No. 1 on the Eco-City list, followed by Honolulu, Ottawa, Helsinki and Wellington.

Minneapolis ranked ahead of Adelaide, Copenhagen, Kobe, Oslo and Stockholm, which were also in the top 10.

Read the city's press release here and see the entire ranking here.

Wisconsinites are worried they'll have to power up because of Minnesota's new angel investor tax credit.
 
About half a dozen Minnesota biotech companies have jumped the border to Wisconsin in recent months, lured by the state's angel investor tax credits, according to the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota.
 
Now that Minnesota has created its own angel investor tax credit, Wisconsin officials tell Milwaukee Magazine that the state might have to do more to attract companies.
 
 "It's going to make us more competitive," Bryan Renk, director of Wisconsin BioForward, tells the magazine.
 
Then, the fightin' words: Milwaukee Magazine writes that, according to Renk, Minnesota may have more biotech jobs, but "Wisconsin has greater research prowess and a more educated workforce."
 
Read the entire article here.
 

The Twin Cities will eventually have three light-rail transit routes, if the $957 billion Southwest Corridor project that the Metropolitan Council endorsed last week gets built. Finance & Commerce reports that the council opted for LRT to carry passengers between Eden Prairie and downtown Minneapolis via a 14-mile route known as the Kenilworth-Opus-Golden Triangle alignment.

"Met Council officials said they'll submit a New Starts application to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) this summer for the Southwest Corridor and hope to get permission to enter the 'preliminary engineering' stage by the end of the year.

"'World class cities have growing, vibrant transit systems," said Peter Bell, chair of the Met Council. "The selection of the mode and alignment for this corridor is an important step forward. It moves the project to the next level and continues the process of building out the region's rail corridor network.'

"The proposed path of the train would run through Minnetonka, Hopkins, and St. Louis Park on its way between downtown Minneapolis and Eden Prairie. It would link up with the Central Corridor and the region's first light rail route, Hiawatha, at the new Target Field Station. It would also connect there with the recently opened Northstar commuter rail line that goes northwest to Big Lake."

Read the full story here. 

Photographer Wing Young Huie's latest documentary effort, "The University Avenue Project," is on display not only in enlargements hung in shop windows but also in a nightly slideshow projected on a 40-foot screen. MinnPost reports that the Project(ion) Site was specially designed and built to host the show along with live performance and dialogues with Huie.

"'The University Avenue Project,' like Huie's public art installation on Lake Street in 2000, is sprawling and ambitious. In the fall of 2007, Public Art St. Paul received a grant from the Joyce Foundation with which to commission a publicly displayed installation of Huie's photography documenting the diverse neighborhoods, businesses, and residents of University Avenue. According to the introductory essay in the project's companion book, such an endeavor documenting the neighborhood was deemed all the more important now, given the impending transformation of the avenue when the new light rail line comes in along the Cities' Central Corridor.

"'The University Avenue Project' features about 450 photographs--a mix of black-and-white and color shots, some large-format, others quite small--which have been placed along a six-mile stretch of the urban thoroughfare, from the Capitol to the border between the Twin Cities (roughly near KSTP studios).

"A handful of the photographs are candid, but many are carefully staged; all of them bear the distinctive mark of Huie's knack for capturing telling human details, his gift for composition."

Read the full story here.

A University of Minnesota study has shown that the Twin Cities' light-rail Hiawatha Line has significantly improved the lot of low-wage workers by making jobs more accessible. The study found that the number of low-wage jobs accessible by 30 minutes of transit travel in the morning rush hours has increased by 50 percent in light-rail station areas of the city, and by 25 percent in zones that connect to the stations via bus lines. Read the full story here.

Source: University of Minnesota News Office

The Washington Post takes a close look at Target Field and likes what it sees. Describing the brand-new Minneapolis ballpark as "a modern-day Fenway�embedded in a city neighborhood," Bruce Adams and Margaret Engel accentuate the field's ecological sensitivity and historical sense--and add a quick guide to exploring the city for outsiders coming to a game. Read their piece here.

Source: The Washington Post

The New York Times updates America on what's happening on one of the hippest streets in Minneapolis, 13th Avenue in Northeast: galleries, restaurants, a record store, and that indefinable urban vibe. Read the story here.

Source: New York Times