Downtown : Featured Stories

In a season of economic gloom and doom, the veteran business developer and partner in the CoCo coworking spaces sees a hopeful future in the bright eyes and collaborative ethics of young entrepreneurs.

Downtown Minneapolis' Holidazzle parade runs for its final four nights starting this Thursday, and as a reminder not to miss what is now a twenty-year-old holiday tradition, we're re-running Susan Klemond's behind-the-scenes look at the parade from last year--with updated schedule information.

Changing regulations and evolving tastes are sparking a craft-beer and microbrewing revolution across the country, and nowhere is the quirky, über-entrepreneurial, nouveau-beer buzz louder than in the Twin Cities. Are you ready for Angry Planet Pale Ale and Masala Mama IPA?

Tough times and public deficits are forcing nonprofits to step up to the plate in new ways. At Social Venture Partners' national convention in Minneapolis, two keynoters let our reporter in on some of the things that smart do-gooders are learning from the pinstripe crowd.

Most of us in the Twin Cities are aware that we've become a great town for bicycling in recent years, but urbanist and author Jay Walljasper--an avid biker for decades--has been digging into the trend to find out the what and the why behind it. In this adaptation of an article he wrote for Bikes Belong, he fills in the story and gives us some impressive facts about the sheer scale and promise of our new two-wheel era.

To accompany Jay Walljasper's take on bike policy and bike culture in the Twin Cities, here's a video by Streetfilms that shows just how valuable one of the crown jewels in our bikeway system is--the Midtown Greenway, running more or less parallel to Lake Street from Chowen Avenue to the Mississippi River.

Following our selection of some favorite public artworks in Saint Paul two weeks ago, here is our take on the beautiful and the quirky in Minneapolis outdoor art--minus the Spoonbridge and Cherry, which is terrific but a little overexposed. It's just a taste of the richness available, designed to get you outside looking at art before the snow flies.

There's always something happening on Hennepin Avenue. The wide, lively downtown Minneapolis boulevard has long specialized in entertainment, from the funky to the family-friendly to the high-cultural. Camille LeFevre reports on the kickoff event of an ambitious project that will transform it. The method? Placemaking, with an accent on the arts.

It's been two years since the green roof on downtown Minneapolis' massive auditorium and sports venue was installed. The Line took a tour to see how things are going and growing.

The hot design-and-marketing shop helps clients win over today's fickle, informed consumers by going way beyond  advertising to create product designs and whole new brands that are too cool to ignore.

For urban designer Peter Musty, who's collaborating on plans for the Loring neighborhood in Minneapolis and the Ford site in St, Paul, walkable, transit-focused neighborhoods are non-negotiable. We need them for our health and prosperity--and to help our culture calm down.

Hobbled by a broken ankle but determined to see as much glow-in-the-dark art as he could, our reporter plunged into the dusk-to-dawn art extravaganza called Northern Spark on the night of June 4. He saw luminescent plankton, 1,600 light-bulb pixels, and a wall of perfectly legal virtual graffiti.

When Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson got the idea of persuading businesses to give their employees a new kind of freedom--work where and when you like, as long as you get the job done--they hoped the idea would spread around the country and the world. That seems to be happening.

Poet, musician, diversity consultant, and reality-show star Mohammed Bilal rapped about the "real world" of race when he keynoted an awards ceremony in Saint Paul last week. The talk was about justice, and the awards went to five Minnesotans who have worked hard--and hopefully--for it in our community.

Most medical spaces and procedures aren't designed with the patient in mind. But that's beginning to change as health-care designers pay more attention to making the patient's experience pleasant and even fun. Here are four local examples of "human-centric" med-design.