Buzz

The architectural firm that designed stadiums for the Dallas Cowboys and Indianapolis Colts will be taking on the new $975 million Minnesota Vikings stadium, noted Sports Illustrated in a news item on the magazine's website.
 
Dallas-based HKS Inc. won the bid for the project, with a $34 million design contract. The stadium is due to open in 2016, and drawings of the new facility could be unveiled as early as this January or February.
 
According to the Sports Illustrated article, HKS is considering whether a retractable roof, wall, or window can fit within the current budget. The Vikings management is hopeful that such functionality can be part of the finished design.
 
Some developments that are likely to make it to the finished stadium are wider concourses, more restrooms, and a "game-day plaza" that connects the facility with surrounding neighborhoods.

Major restaurant, hotel, and nightclub review source Zagat recently released its annual Fast-Food Survey results, and Minnesota-based Caribou Coffee beat out some stiff competition in the quick refreshment category.
 
Although Starbucks was voted most popular in the category, Caribou came out as the leader in terms of service and decor. It also won the "Top Overall" prize in the category, besting competitors like Peet's Coffee and Culver's.
 
For the survey, Zagat took the opinions of over 10,000 voters and divided them into several categories. For top-rated fast food, for example, In-N-Out Burger won in the "large" category, but Wendy's led the "mega" category.

The local foodie website Heavy Table recently started a taproom directory for Minneapolis and St. Paul, which it plans to update regularly.

Ever since the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill in 2011 that “allows for brewers to operate an on-sale establishment on their brewing premises,” new brewing ventures have emerged all over the place, many of which include taprooms.

Dangerous Man Brewing, Indeed Brewing and 612Brew even make up a Northeast “Brew District,” the directory states.

It also includes listings for taprooms to come.

A short video on the TC Daily Planet website titled “Art Saves Lives,” from DJM film company with the help of Art Institutes International Minnesota and the Waite House, documents the making of a local youth-driven mural project.

The mini-documentary shows how a blank wall was transformed, going from the beginning of the project to the mural’s unveiling. The video also includes interviews with young artists and the project’s facilitators. They talk about how the mural beautifies the neighborhood, provides valuable personal and professional training for youth, and builds trust between teenagers and adults.

Monica Nassif Loves Minneapolis is the headline of a recent Huffington Post piece.
 
In a letter format, Nassif, the founder of the Caldrea company, which manufactures cleaning products and sleepwear, tells of her love affair with the city.
 
When she and her husband were stranded on a cold winter day years ago, she was impressed by the level of recreational activity happening around Lake of the Isles.
 
“We were star-struck--standing in front of the most charming lake I had ever seen--in the middle of our new city,” she says, adding that it’s a feeling that continues today.
 
“How can you not love a city--a major metropolitan city--with so much green space and water?” she asks.  
 
 


 

St. Paul parks designer Don Ganje recently joined the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects, according to Minnpost.

ASLA describes this induction as "among the highest honors the ASLA bestows on members and recognizes the contributions of these individuals to their profession and society at large based on their works, leadership and management, knowledge, and service."

ASLA goes on to say that with Ganje’s “eye for the smallest site detail and mastery of vast public open spaces, he has the ability to make places where people feel welcome and that comfort, excite, and encourage them to interact,” adding, “He further infuses his colleagues with a passion for the highest levels of design excellence.”  

Because of "excellent planning policies, high level of staff commitment to pedestrian safety and pedestrian campaigns and events," Minneapolis is a gold-level community for walking, according to Walk Friendly Communities.
 
As also reported in Southwest Journal, the city's extensive sidewalk network is an example of how Minneapolis is devoted to providing pedestrian facilities. Over 90 percent of streets in Minneapolis have complete sidewalks, and over 80 percent of streets have sidewalks on both sides of the street.
 
Walk Friendly Communities also noted the city's pedestrian street lighting, parking standards, and crosswalk practices as other indications of the walking friendliness of Minneapolis.

Businessweek released a list of "America's 50 Best Cities," and St. Paul and Minneapolis came in at no. 10 and no. 12 respectively.
 
"St. Paul may be the smaller of the Twin Cities, but the state capital is also cleaner and safer, if slightly behind Minneapolis in median household income," the business publication notes.
 
Minneapolis, meanwhile, is recognized for its parks and lakes, as well as the University of Minnesota's numerous national championships in ice hockey. The article states, "Downtown Minneapolis beats the cold with a unique network of connected buildings, with the City Center mall at its core."
 
As for the best cities in the rest of the country, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. took the top three spots.
 
To get the results, Businessweek teamed up with Bloomberg Rankings to evaluate data on 100 of the country's largest cities, and looked at leisure attributes, educational attributes, economic factors, crime, and air quality.

The Minneapolis-based charity Feed My Starving Children is getting closer to its goal of establishing a full-time packing center in Miami, and a recent effort to build support in the area was a success, according to a recent story in the Miami Herald.
 
At an event to pack meals for Haitian children, a group of nearly 500 Miami volunteers put together 25,000 rice meals in just two hours. One volunteer noted that it was a fulfilling experience, and said that it felt important to her to show her kids that "the world doesn't have opportunities like we have."
 
The article went on to add that the event was the first step in an effort to generate community support for the charity's efforts, and a group of volunteers was already planning another event in January. Feed My Starving Children has seven full-time sites in Minnesota, Chicago, and Arizona, and if all goes well, Miami will be its eighth.

National Public Radio (NPR) recently highlighted a technology-based gambling tactic that's being used to help fund a new NFL stadium for Minnesota.
 
In its "All Tech Considered" blog, NPR noted that state residents can use approved iPads to play a digital pull-tab game, and the money will go toward financing the stadium, which is estimated to cost about $975 million.The Minnesota system is the first of its kind in the United States

The iPads are available in bars, where patrons can play at their own tables. Gamblers can place bets of either $1 or $2, and boxes at the bottom of the screen keep a running tally of cash reserves. 

Recently, Artforum, a national art magazine, included a review of a local art show from Andy DuCett at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis.

The story’s writer, Jay Gabler, is also from the area.

Gabler compares the installation, called, “Why we do this” to a film.

“DuCett has created dozens of distinct spaces and assembled them in an eccentric progression that draws the viewer through the gallery with the promise of a surprise around every corner. His themes are memory and life history—specifically, the memories and history of the thirtysomething Minnesotan man he is,” the piece reads.  

A recent story from the TC Daily Planet tells of a St. Paul resident’s home-crafted K'nex toy, dubbed Clockwork, which “has become a fast internet phenomenon since he released the video of it earlier this month.”

The toy has more than 40,000 pieces of K'nex--a creative construction material--plus eight motors, five lifts, a computer controlled crane and a couple of K'nex balls, according to the story.

It has attracted over a million hits on YouTube and landed on Reddit’s front page.

Its creator, Austin Granger, is quoted in the story, saying, “Every time I make one, I try to go bigger and more complex, and more ambitious than the one that came before it.”

Publishers Weekly recently reported on the Sept. 8 debut of a local literary journal called Revolver.

The new journal publishes a mix of prose, poetry, visual art, photography, and play excerpts, PW states.

Online content will be refreshed every couple of weeks, while a print edition will come out twice a year.

Revolver’s seven founding editors are part of a writing group that began meeting two years ago.  

Esther Porter, a founding editor, explains that the journal came out of their monthly conversations: “We’d go out and close down bars fighting over stories, literature of all kinds. We wanted to have something to show for it.”

Reflecting the group's energy, the journal publishes pieces “that hit the brain like a bullet,” she says.
  



 

Local arts journalist Matt Peiken’s new project, MNuet, is featured in a recent blog post from Knight Arts.

Peiken intends MNuet, which launched on Sept. 4, to be an online hub for statewide classical music coverage.

He wants to create a community around classical music. Furthermore, members of MNuet will help support that.  

"No media organization around here has a staff writer dedicated to covering the classical music beat any more,: says Peiken. "The coverage is all farmed out to freelancers."

While major media outlets broadcast occasional concerts, nobody's reporting on the scene, he says, adding, "You can learn about what the major players are doing, but you don’t get context, and you certainly don’t hear much from individual artists.”

For seven days, Minneapolis-based musician Mark Mallman will be perfoming one continuous song, in the back of a van, and streaming it online. The project, called Marathon IV, is so unique that USA Today recently featured it in its Popcandy section.
 
Kicked off on Saturday, September 15th, the 150-hour music performance features distinctive sounds from instruments like a keytar, as well as a heart-rate monitor that creates music while Mallman is sleeping.
 
During the project's span, the musician will be traveling as well, with stops in Chicago, Omaha, Denver, and Las Vegas. At his final destination, Los Angeles, guest musicians will join him.