Downtown/Lowertown : Development News

The Green Line light-rail line opens doors to a number of emerging cultural districts along University Avenue in the Central Corridor. Throughout the rest of the summer and into the fall, C4ward: Arts and Culture Along the Green Line is inviting Twin Cities’ residents to explore six of these districts through a series of free arts-centered events occurring every other Saturday. The next event is Saturday August 9 in the Rondo and Victoria neighborhoods off the Victoria Station.

The series of events kicked off July 26 in the Little Mekong District during one of the five Southeast Asian Night Markets planned this summer. Other districts on the C4ward docket, in addition to Rondo/Frogtown, are Little Africa, Creative Enterprise Zone, Prospect Park and West Bank.

For years, University Avenue existed mainly as a thoroughfare—a place to be traveled through on the way to someplace else. The array of new cultural districts popping up is evidence that that area’s identity is already changing, says Kathy Mouacheupao, Cultural Corridor coordinator with the Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), which is organizing C4ward in partnership with leaders from each of the cultural districts.

“When you’re driving down University, people usually have their destination planned already—you really miss a lot of the richness, a lot of the cultural identities, the really cool things that are happening along the corridor,” she says.

Whether it’s the abundant entrepreneurs, artists and unique shopping in the Creative Enterprise Zone near the Raymond Ave. Station, or the string of African-owned businesses a short jaunt off the Snelling Ave. stop, C4ward is looking to draw new visitors to burgeoning points of cultural and artistic vibrancy that might have been previously overlooked.

“We’re trying to groove new patterns,” Mouacheupao says. “One of the nice things about the Green Line light rail is that people are starting to notice things they didn’t notice before when they were driving.”

The rich arts and creative communities that quietly thrive along the Central Corridor will be on full display at the C4ward events. From do-it-yourself letterpress printing to illuminated mask making, Mouacheupao says the artists involved are dedicated to engaging and building community. “We all live and breathe art,” she says. Art is one way in which “we communicate with each other.”

 

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.

 

From luggage store to barren gravel pit, to the future site of what could be downtown St. Paul’s largest park, the land parcel at 10th and Robert streets is an urban space in transition. For the next two years, it will be home to Urban Flower Field—a public art project from the nonprofit Public Art St. Paul.

With 96 plots of bio-diverse flower beds arranged in a fanning pinwheel shape and a public plaza at the center, Urban Flower Field seeks to transform what might otherwise be a lifeless void downtown into a lush community gathering space.

Amanda Lovelee, City Artist in Residence with Public Art St. Paul, is heading the project. She explains it’s a unique opportunity to explore the intersection of art, civic process and science in a way that re-imagines how we conceive, develop and utilize urban space.

She hopes to have a full slate of programming in the field over the next two years, including regular movie nights, free yoga and more. “The city is letting artists use these spaces to make something the community can enjoy during the time between what the spaces will be and what they currently are,” Lovelee says.

The Pedro Family of Pedro luggage, which previously occupied the site, donated the land to the City in 2009 with the condition that it be made a public park. The City is considering several designs for the forthcoming Pedro Park, the most ambitious of which would require the acquisition of more land and cost upwards of $10 million, according to Brad Meyer with St. Paul Parks and Recreation.

Urban Flower Field is more than an artistically crafted temporary community gathering space, though. Students and faculty with the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of St. Thomas are lending their expertise and time to conduct a comprehensive soil remediation study at the site.

They are studying whether a diverse selection of flowers can be more effective at cleansing and replenishing soil. Led by professor Adam Kay, students are on the ground at Urban Flower Field every day, planting and tending the flowerbeds, as well as sampling and documenting the soil quality. They hope to publish their findings in scientific journals at the end of the two-year period, according to Lovelee.

This intersection of art and science led Lovelee to create the flower field’s pinwheel form. The form is based on the Fibonacci sequence (also known as the Golden Mean)—a mathematical pattern that occurs everywhere in nature, including at the center of sunflowers, which will be planted in the plots.

The Fibonacci sequence is also commonly considered the scientific basis for the abstract concept of beauty. “In my mind, that was when science and beauty kind of come together,” Lovelee said. The Fibonacci sequence is also the basis of a large mural painted by Ed Charbonneau on the back wall of the Police Annex building that borders the space to the north.

The $45,000 project is being funded in large part by the city, which put $30,000 toward the project. In addition, a $15,000 grant from ArtPlace America is going toward  the efforts, as well as in-kind and monetary support from businesses and organizations including Lund’s, Black Sheep Pizza, Keys Café and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Members of the surrounding community have also stepped up to plant, weed, water and program, according to Christine Podas-Larson, president of Public Art St. Paul.

Urban Flower Field will officially open June 28th when community members and neighbors will be invited to paint field stones that will line some of the beds, Lovelee said. The flowers will be in full bloom by August.

 

Craft brewing continues its march into St. Paul. Tin Whiskers Brewing Company opened its doors to the public last Friday. Located on the ground floor of the Rossmor Building in Lowertown, Tin Whiskers is the first brewery taproom to open in St. Paul’s urban core.

“You have this really cool historic warehouse building with this amazing space—you have artists, you have great food, you have everything you need for a great craft brewing experience,” says Jeff Moriarty, president and one of Tin Whiskers’ three founders. Restaurants like Keys Café, Sawatdee and Black Sheep Coal Fired Pizza are also housed in the Rossmor.

Moriarty is one of Tin Whiskers’ three former electrical engineers turned craft brewers. He met George Kellerman, who heads branding efforts, and Jake Johnson, the head brewer, at the school of Electrical Engineering at the University of Minnesota.

That common bond is evident throughout their branding and operations. In the electrical engineering world, the term "tin whisker" refers to a soldering error that leads to a short circuit on a printed circuit board. In the craft beer realm, it now stands for technically excellent beer, brewed with an attention to detail and process one would expect from a group of engineers.

They aren’t bashful about the nerd-factor. Everything from their robot logo, to beer names like Flipswitch IPA and Beta Batch stout evoke the trio’s engineering background, which Moriarty says partly drives their affection for beer.  

“Of course, being engineers, we like drinking beer—it makes us a wee-bit more social,” he says with a laugh.

It’s been a long trip from engineering school to taproom opening. Moriarty and Johnson first started homebrewing in 2006. From Johnson’s mother’s kitchen to Moriarty’s basement, they honed their craft, kept detailed brew logs and sought to perfect the science behind the brew.

They hold an open source policy when it comes to recipes and operations. They are happy to share, within reason, what they’ve learned along the way with others thinking of starting up their own operation.

When it came time for the big move from home brewer to destination brewery, Moriarty says they knew their location would have to be in St. Paul or Roseville to keep the water supply consistent.

“The biggest local component that goes into any brew is local water,” Moriarty says. “We kinda believed in that terroir of the water, so to speak.”

The brewery currently has the equipment to pump out about 1,700 barrels of beer a year. This is just phase one, though, says Moriarty. His vision is to eventually be producing upwards of 20,000 barrels a year through a satellite production brewery in the city.

Right now they are serving up both a carbonated and nitro version of their Beta Batch stout, Wheatstone Bridge (an American style wheat beer) and Flip Switch IPA. All three beers are labeled “Beta” versions, which is engineer-speak for initial batches subject to tweaks and changes.

Their full lineup of rotating beers, including an amber ale and pumpkin ale, will be available at the official Grand Opening the first week in June..

The taproom and brewery is currently open to the public Wednesdays and Thursdays 4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., Fridays 3:00pm to 11:00 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 11:00 p.m.

 

This week, internationally renowned placemaking expert Gil Penalosa is visiting the Twin Cities during the Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation’s Third Annual Placemaking Residency. The residency includes 16 events over 4 days with Penalosa to get residents and planners collaborating on how to bring the metro area from good to great in terms of its parks, transit, mobility and overall livability.

It’s not as simple as it may seem, said Penalosa, the esteemed former Commissioner of Parks, Sport and Recreation in Bogota, Colombia, at the Textile Center in Minneapolis on Monday during the opening event. “It’s much more difficult to go from good to great than bad to great,” he added.

As the executive director of Toronto’s 8-80 Cities, Penalosa’s idea is that if you create a city that’s good for an 8 year old and good for an 80 year old, you will create a successful city for everyone.

The Twin Cities is on the right track with multimodal transit infrastructure, improved green spaces and pedestrian friendly development getting special attention from planners and policymakers in recent years. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to sit idle, says Patrick Seeb, executive director of Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation.

“[Penalosa] will help push us to think more boldly about what the opportunities are in the Twin Cities,” he said.

Those opportunities might vary greatly across the city—from parts of the Cities that are rather advanced in thinking about pedestrian balance and mobility like downtown St. Paul, where an Open Streets event will be held with Penalosa on Thursday, to places like the South Loop in Bloomington where planners are trying to figure out how to better develop the area around the two major transit stops near the Mall of America.

Then there are places somewhere in between, such as Prospect Park. Here organizers are pushing a plan to transform the area north of University Avenue into a vibrant mixed-use center of pedestrian activity around the new Green Line station. Construction on Surly Brewing Company's new destination brewery is already underway there, providing a potential anchor for future development, said Dick Gilyard of Prospect Park 2020 while leading a walk with Penalosa on Monday.

Penalosa says there is a tendency for cities in the northern hemisphere to mistakenly plan their infrastructure around the couple harshest days in winter. “When we think this is the norm, we end up with a series of tubes above the city that sucks the life out of the city,” Penalosa said. “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing,” he added.

One of the key goals of the residency is to pull ordinary citizens into the planning process by giving them the tools, vision and lingo to be able to participate in meaningful ways, according to Seeb.

“People want to make a difference in their neighborhood, and the more they can help shape where they live, the more likely they are to stay there and reinvent and improve the neighborhood,” Seeb said.

With the help of Penalosa and an array of partner organizations, Seeb hopes the residency will empower people all over the Twin Cities to get involved in the planning and development of their communities.

Penalosa will be making appearances at places like Central High School in St. Paul to help students and community leaders explore how the school can better connect to its surrounding neighborhoods. He’ll stop by the University of Minnesota to promote biking and walking in the University district. He’ll also lead a walking tour of downtown Minneapolis and be the keynote speaker at the 20th Annual Great River Gathering Thursday evening.

 

After a 42-year hiatus, passenger rail service will return to the historic Union Depot in Lowertown Saint Paul on Wednesday, May 7—bringing the station one step closer to becoming the central multimodal transit hub planners spent $243 million envisioning and renovating.

Union Depot will return to its original intent of being a national connection point for train travelers when Amtrak’s Empire Builder arrives to the station’s Kellogg Entry at 10:03 p.m. Amtrak’s current station in the Midway area of Saint Paul will close when the Chicago-bound train departs that morning.

From Union Depot, passengers can connect to a variety of other transportation networks, including intercity buses like Greyhound and Jefferson bus lines, as well as Metro Transit and MVTA local bus services. In June, the new Metro Transit Green Line light rail will start rolling with Union Depot as its Eastern terminus. There are also plans to house a bicycle center, complete with storage facility at the station, according to a joint statement from the Ramsey County Regional Railroad Authority (RCRRA) and Amtrak.

Originally built in 1881 as a stepping stone for passengers arriving and departing on journeys to and from the quickly expanding Western United States, as many as 20,000 travelers a day passed through the station during its peak in the 1920s, says Deborah Carter McCoy, of RCRRA.

“It’s a very important building for many people,” says McCoy, who currently works out of the station. “Every day there is a new story about someone’s father who was a conductor or an uncle who was a Red Cap [Amtrak service agent].”

With the rise of the automobile and increased popularity of air travel, passenger rail service took a nosedive in the middle part of the last century. “There just wasn’t a lot of traffic in and out of these large train stations,” McCoy said.

Union Depot shuttered its gates in 1971 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The renovation wrapped up in 2012, priming the depot for the modern resurgence of train travel and multimodal transportation.

For the time being, the Empire Builder out of Chicago will be the only passenger train passing through Union Depot—a somewhat fitting start, considering James J. Hill, known as “The Empire Builder,” was a major motivator behind the station’s initial construction.

McCoy says feasibility studies are underway to explore additional trains running between the Twin Cities and Chicago, and the MN High-Speed Rail Commission is also looking at options for a more rapid connection.

Adult rail fares for the Empire Builder start at $66 each way to Chicago and $164 each way to Portland and Seattle. The RCRRA and Amtrak will host a free event celebrating the return of passenger rail service on National Train Day at Union Depot, Saturday, May 10.

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 Twin Cities’ growing transportation infrastructure grabbed the national spotlight when President Barack Obama dropped by the newly renovated Union Depot in Saint Paul last Wednesday to tout a $300-billion-dollar transportation proposal.

Obama pointed to the $243-million-dollar Depot makeover in Lowertown as an example of the boost transportation development can give to local economies. “This project symbolizes what’s possible,” he said.

The project was supported, in part, through a federal grant program known as TIGER, or Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, which was created as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

“All told, more than 4,000 jobs were created for this project. And we’re seeing businesses crop up and new development crop up all along the line,” Obama said.

During his speech, Obama announced a $600-million expansion of the competitive TIGER grant program to spur economic development across the country. He plans to help finance the plan by simplifying the tax code and closing loopholes—a tactic Republicans generally oppose.

To hear the President speak, some 1,300-ticketed spectators filed into the multi-modal transit hub that will soon service the Metro Transit’s new Green Line, bus lines, and Amtrak trains.

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-St. Paul, who played an integral role in garnering $124 million in federal funding for the Depot project, was among them. She accompanied Obama on his flight from Washington aboard Air Force One.

“The President’s visit here today represents a great victory for all of the tireless champions of transit here in the east metro,” McCollum said in a statement. “Union Depot will serve as the crown jewel of transportation in the state of Minnesota and provide a critical upgrade to our region’s infrastructure.”

A shiny new light rail train that will soon be rolling down the Central Corridor was on full display in front of the Depot for Obama’s appearance. The President toured the maintenance facility for the trains during his visit.

“I just had a chance to take a look at some of those spiffy new trains,” Obama said. “They are nice. And they’re energy efficient. They’re going to be reliable. You can get from one downtown to the other in a little over 30 minutes.”

In an embarrassing turn, the new train that was on display careened off a snow bank and derailed on its return trip from the Depot shortly after Obama departed. It took workers several hours get the train back on track, according to the Star Tribune.

Obama didn’t miss the opportunity to bond with Minnesotans over what is turning out to be the coldest winter in decades. He chided Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, a North Carolinian, who introduced the President at the event, for being soft in the cold.

“When we got off the plane, Secretary Foxx…turned to me and he said, ‘This is the coldest I’ve ever been in my life.’ Now we were only out there for like a minute,” Obama said. The President added that as a native of Chicago, he found the single-digit temperatures that day “balmy.” “February in Minnesota—can’t beat it. Cannot beat it,” he said.

He also commended Minnesota’s contributions to the Winter Olympics in Sochi. “It is not shocking that Minnesotans might be pretty good at the Winter Olympics,” he said. Minnesota sent 19 athletes to the games—the second most of any state.

Sources: President Barack Obama, Rep. Betty McCullum, D-St. Paul
Writer: Kyle Mianulli

Todd Boss is planning an ambitious public art installation at the historic Saint Paul Union Depot that explores themes of arrival and departure.

Boss, a local poet, public artist, and a co-founder of Motionpoems, intends to turn the landmark building into a 3D screen for various short films based on original poems. His project, titled, "Arrivals and Departures," will coincide with the Saint Paul Art Crawl in October 2014.     

Films will be projected onto the building’s façade every five minutes so the Depot appears to be moving along a rail line, he explains. "The idea is to inspire Minnesotans to think about the Depot and to attempt a poem about what it symbolizes,” he says. 

In the coming years, the recently renovated Depot will be a multimodal hub for various forms of transit. Boss's project celebrates the building's turnaround. “I want this to be a sort of reclamation of the space. I want it to be one way in which we give that space new meaning, and possess it again,” he says. 

The poetry that will inspire the films is emerging out of a statewide poetry contest for which The Loft Literary Center is a sponsor. The contest deadline is Jan. 15, the same day that the Kickstarter campaign ends. Boss is trying to raise $20,000 through Kickstarter. He hopes to remount the project annually over the next four years. He also wants to document the process through film.

Boss encourages contest entrants to think broadly about the theme, not literally. For him, the theme has to do with “second chances and opportunity and this melting pot nation that we have. All of the things that we associate with departure and arrival,” he says. 

Depending on how much funding the project secures, as many as 10 poems could move forward, he says. At that point, local filmmakers will be invited to interpret the poems in film. It’s all about “locally-sourced, community-making,” he says.

Boss credits his wife, Amy, for coming up with the original idea for the installation. One day last year, when they were working on a separate project, “She sat down at the kitchen table and said, ‘You know what would be cool?’ And she laid out a vision of a projected image of a landscape slowly going by, to make it look like the view out of a train car,” he says. “The poet part of my brain just recognized the poetic gesture of that.”  


Source: Todd Boss, Poetry in Motion 
Writer: Anna Pratt

Recently, the city of St. Paul put out a request for qualifications (RFQ) for the public art that will go into the new Saints stadium in Lowertown. 

The city and the baseball team enlisted Julie Snow Architects, AECOM, and Ryan Companies to come up with a main concept for the 7,000-seat facility, which includes everything from public plazas to a dog park, according to the RFQ. 

Jody Martinez, who works for the city’s parks and recreation department, is leading the charge. She explains that at this early stage, artist entrants probably won’t have a “super-fleshed out idea,” for their ballpark contributions. Rather, the RFQ, which has a Sept. 16 deadline, is more about “what the artists hope to accomplish,” she says.   

That’s what a committee composed of city workers, art professionals, and other stakeholders will be looking at when they select the artists for the job, she says. 

Public art will add another dimension to the ballpark, which is replacing the 30-year-old Midway Stadium.

She says the ballpark’s artwork could take just about any form. For example, public art might tie in to the area’s history or the arts district. It might also incorporate “new-age electric art,” she says, adding, “It’s really open. We didn’t want to be prescriptive in any way.”  

That said, the Saints are known for a lot of quirky things, and the art should reflect that. “We’re looking for something quirky or out of the box, that speaks to the Saints and what they’ve stood for,” she says. Additionally, the public art should be within plain view so “that you [don't] have to search for it. It should be front and center."  

The committee encourages established and emerging artists to collaborate. “We’re hoping to get some interesting teams of artists who can combine forces and come up with unique ideas,” Martinez says. 

The timeframe for the public art will be tied to the stadium’s construction, which is planned to begin next spring, she adds.  


Source: Jody Martinez, St. Paul Parks and Recreation 
Writer: Anna Pratt 

A mural in a skyway at downtown St. Paul’s Alliance Bank Center is encouraging all kinds of personal and profound reactions. 

The mural, which spans a 36-foot-long construction barricade, has been designed to appear like an oversized chalkboard. Over and over, it contains the line, “Before I die I want to…” with space for 168 people to fill in the blanks.  

Shawn Wiski, the property manager for the building, had seen a headline about New Orleans-based artist Candy Chang’s original project. It had to do with how the words, “Before I die I want to….” changed her life, she says. 

Chang came up with the project after losing a close friend who’d been a mother figure to her. “She started reflecting on the rest of her life and what she wanted to do,” she says.  

The artist took that line of thought and she wound up stenciling it on the exterior of a vacant, boarded-up house in New Orleans. “The response was phenomenal, so it’s been duplicated,” in cities all over the globe, she says. 

Wiski thought about the skyway, where the “huge white construction wall calls out for something to be decorating it. It was an opportunity for something to go there that benefits others.”

St. Paul's "Before I die" mural is in an ideal spot, with plenty of pedestrian traffic. “It’s gone over far better than I could have expected. It’s had an overwhelming response,” Wiski says. 

Within several hours of the mural’s unveiling in the skyway on July 8, the slots had been completely filled out. Since then, the answers have been erased and already it’s chock-full of answers once again. “It’s been cool to watch the people gather by it, read it, take pictures and write on it,” she says. 

The mural will be up for a total of six weeks, as was another art project that came before it. “I just hope it’s an inspiration to all, that it helps everyone reflect on their life and the importance of what they can contribute,” she says. 

The mural also offers a community-building exercise. “It teaches us about our fellow businessperson, resident, visitor, and more,” she says. 

Many of the responses defy stereotypes, she says. People are “divulging a little bit of their inner self. So it’s personal.”  


Source: Shawn Wiski, property manager, Alliance Bank Center 
Writer: Anna Pratt 

The Buttered Tin, a new bakery/restaurant, is slated to open in St. Paul’s Lowertown neighborhood later this month.

The place has a $10,000 Kickstarter fundraising campaign underway, for which it needs $2,000 to reach its goal by next week. 

Jennifer Lueck, who co-owns the place with her business partner, Alicia Hinze, says the money will help get the bakery up and running. She hopes the campaign gets community members to take ownership of the bakery/restaurant right away, too. 

The pair focused on this neighborhood because “We knew it was a need. There’s nothing like it in that area,” Lueck says. Lowertown “seems like it’s right on the verge of exploding with light rail and the new stadium coming. It feels like a good time to get in and establish ourselves,” early, she says.  

The space previously housed a sub shop but had been vacant for a number of years. It had a good floor plan already, with space for 45 seats inside plus outdoor dining for 20 patrons. “We didn’t have to do a major renovation or construction,” Lueck says.

Instead, they mainly reimagined the look of the space, and created an open kitchen, so people can see the food as it's prepared. "We think it’s important that people feel connected to their food,” she says.

The partners want the café to be a comfortable neighborhood gathering place. “We feel we’re contributing to the neighborhood,” Lueck says. To create that feel, the space has ceiling tiles, dark wood, “a cool floor that’s really durable,” and reclaimed marble from the historic Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis, which makes for a unique countertop. “Aesthetically, it’s traditional or classic. That’s what our aim is for the interior."

It’s been fun to see the elements she and Hinze picked out a year ago falling into place, says Lueck. “We’re so excited. It turned out beautifully,” she says.

Source: Jennifer Lueck, co-owner, The Buttered Tin
Writer: Anna Pratt  

Flow Art Space, which hosts juried group shows and the occasional solo exhibit on a monthly basis, recently moved into the Northern Warehouse in St. Paul’s Lowertown neighborhood.  

Gallery owner Melissa Metzler decided to relocate the gallery, which features local and national artists, from the Keg House Arts building in Northeast Minneapolis, where it opened in 2011, due to noise issues. When she was scoping out new locations, she sought a place that was easy to find and that had a strong arts community. Lowertown was a good match and the historic Northern Warehouse is “ideal for a gallery,” she says.  

The building also houses the Black Dog Coffee Shop and Wine Bar.

Already, the 1,200-square-foot space was well equipped for a gallery. The main thing Metzler did was to add more track lighting, she says. Big wood beams, hardwood floors and tall ceilings, along with plenty of wall space, characterize the space. “It has natural materials and has a nice feel to it,” she says.

Also, the building is home to many artists and creative businesses. “I’m benefiting from being in this critical mass. There’s a lot of creative energy and creative people. I like going into that environment everyday.”

In her view, there’s plenty of room for more galleries in the area and beyond. “There needs to be more galleries and places to show artwork,” she says. “Having more galleries together in one area is better for everybody,” she says. “It gives people more options.”  

On top of that, “Lowertown is in a real revitalization time right now,” she says. “There’s so much happening with the Depot reopening and light rail--and the artists continue to be there.”

Source: Melissa Metzler, owner, Flow Art Space
Writer: Anna Pratt

Northern Spark, an all-night art festival that’s in its third year, recently announced that in 2013, it’ll take over St. Paul’s Lowertown neighborhood.

The free festival, which is planned for the evening of June 8, continuing into the wee morning hours, offers a wide variety of performances, visual art, projected images, interactive media, and participatory events, according to Northern Spark materials.     

Last year, the festival took place in Minneapolis only, though in 2011 it hosted activities in both cities, including Lowertown. The location has jumped around based on scheduling needs and other factors, according to a post from Knight Arts.
 
Steve Dietz, who is the president and artistic director of Northern Lights.mn, which organizes the festival, says Lowertown is an ideal location because it “has a significant history as a vital center for artists and arts organizations.”  

Recently, the area has seen the reopening of the historic Union Depot, the development of an experimental project space for the Minnesota Museum of American Art and a new venue for the Bedlam Theatre. The coming Central Corridor Light Rail Transit and a new St. Paul Saints stadium will add to the momentum, he says.

The festival has a “unique opportunity to engage with an amazing history, remarkable architecture, creative ferment,” he says.

“We’d like Northern Spark to be an integral part of the exciting future of the area” and to show the neighborhood in a new light, he says.

Ultimately, the festival is about building community. It gets thousands of people “wandering purposely aimlessly at odd hours participating in a shared experience,” he says. “It is a way to not just imagine but participate in creating the place where we’d like to live.”

Recently, the organization put out a call for 10 projects, which can be in any medium. The deadline is March 4.

“The types of experiences range from spectacular to intimate to surprising to thought-provoking,” he says, adding that the most memorable works are interactive in some way.  

Although Northern Spark won’t disclose the lineup until March 12, more than 75 projects from 45 organizations will also be showcased at the festival, according to Dietz.


Source: Steve Dietz, president and artistic director, Northern Lights.Mn
Writer: Anna Pratt

A large mural composed of 600,000 multicolored Lite-Brite pegs will light up St. Paul’s Union Depot on Saturday.  

The 12-foot-by-24-foot mural, designed by local artist Ta-coumba T. Aiken, will set the Guinness World Record for the “Largest Picture Made of Lite-Brite,” according to Laura Mylan, project manager for the Forever Saint Paul Challenge. It’s the number of pegs that go into a mural, not its physical dimensions, which determine the size, she explains.

The record Lite-Brite mural at this time has 513,000 pegs, so the St. Paul mural will “easily defeat the record and set a new one,” she says.

The project jumpstarts the Forever Saint Paul Challenge, a contest sponsored by The Saint Paul Foundation and Minnesota Idea Open, to draw out original ideas for improving St. Paul.   

On Saturday, the festivities begin at 3 p.m. with live music, oversized board games, food and more, while the lighting ceremony will happen at 7 p.m.

“We’re doing this to inspire big, bold creative ideas for the future,” Mylan says, adding, “We want ideas from everyone, from all walks of life, from across the state. What better way to do that than to create a big, bright public art installation that is truly of the community?”

In keeping with that, the abstract mural has the words “Forever Saint Paul” embedded in it.

Already, hundreds of volunteers have turned out to lend a hand on the mural. “It inspires people. It makes them smile,” she says, adding that most volunteers have found out about the project through social media and word of mouth.

The idea is to engage people in a creative process from the get-go, she says.

Since Jan. 12, people have helped hand-sort the pegs by color and started filling in the giant frame. “We’ve been so thrilled by the volunteer involvement. It’s been amazing.”

It made sense to hire the internationally known Aiken to design the mural because “He happens to work with points of color,” she says. He’s also accustomed to doing large-scale public artworks to which “He brings a great, welcoming presence,” she says.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, Carleen Rhodes, the president and CEO of Minnesota Philanthropy Partners, and a Guinness World Record judge will all be on hand at the event.

The mural will be displayed at the depot through the end of the month.

“It has created a great community spirit and people are having so much fun with it,” she says.

Source: Laura Mylan, project manager, Forever Saint Paul Challenge
Writer: Anna Pratt