Coordination/Collaboration : Development News

To help make the city of Minneapolis stand out to tourists and convention planners, it's being rebranded as a 'City by Nature.'

Meet Minneapolis introduced the tagline at an Oct. 27 press conference in the IDS Center's Crystal Court in downtown Minneapolis. 

Melvin Tennant, who is the CEO and president for Meet Minneapolis, a nonprofit organization that promotes the city (and is also a sponsor of The Line), says that the rebranding came about because “We need better positioning for the city and more consistent messaging to visitors.”

The tagline is accompanied by a broader brand position, ‘Metropolitan by Nature,’ along with a logo that depicts the city with a silhouette of skyscrapers and trees reflected on water.

Each aspect of the plan is deeply rooted in research that began in early 2011, he says.  

When researchers gathered feedback about the city, they found that adjectives such as “friendly, beautiful, and down-to-earth,” often came up, he says.  

Those are attributes that the marketing strategy will help the city to build on, he explains.

As it is, too few people see the city as a vacation destination, Mayor R.T. Rybak adds.

In a survey of top cities to visit, Minneapolis was under the radar for those who’d never been to the area, he says. But for people who had spent some quality time in the city, it shot near the top. “To know us is to love us,” Rybak concludes.

It’s a big deal, considering that 18 million visitors who arrive to the area every year spend $6 billion annually, he says.

The press event also kicked off a social-media-type “virtual destination tour” around town.

Using their smartphones, people can scan QR codes in and around such local landmarks as the IDS Center, Minneapolis Convention Center, Stone Arch Bridge, Guthrie Theater and Target Field, for informative videos and links, according to Meet Minneapolis information.

Source: R.T. Rybak, Minneapolis mayor, and Melvin Tennant, Meet Minneapolis president and CEO
Writer: Anna Pratt

The Weisman Art Museum (WAM) in Minneapolis, which recently reopened with a new addition, wrapped up a design competition last month that re-imagines the plaza outside its front entrance.

A nine-member jury chose as its winner a proposal jointly from VJAA (Jennifer Yoos and Vincent James), HouMinn Practice (Marc Swackhammer and Blair Satterfield), and artist Diane Willow, according to WAM information.

The plaza, which overlooks the Mississippi River, stands on the eastern edge of the Washington Avenue Bridge, which links the east and west banks of the University of Minnesota campus.

Over 2,000 people cross the plaza daily, and with the completion of recent construction projects, including the Weisman expansion, that number is probably going to go up, according to museum information.

WAM spokesperson Erin Lauderman explains that the design competition was a way to “re-envision our front yard,” which, she adds, is important because “We’re the figureheads for people coming onto the campus as they cross the river.”

The idea is to make the busy plaza more of a gathering space where people will want to linger. “Right now it dumps you on the campus,” she says.

To address that, WAM's Target Studio for Creative Collaboration required that submissions come from interdisciplinary teams with experience designing public spaces.

She says that the winning team’s design helps redirect the flow of traffic to make it safer, keeping pedestrians and bicyclists separate.

It also makes way for an interactive public space with digital walls where passersby “can stop and interact, sort of like a call and response.”

For example, images of people walking across the bridge could appear on the digital walls.

The next phase involves public meetings. “It needs to be vetted for what’s realistic and what the community wants it to be,” Lauderman says.


Source: Erin Lauderman, spokesperson, Weisman Art Museum
Writer: Anna Pratt

As the latest development in a larger project to go green at the Saint Paul RiverCentre, this week an 82-kilowatt photovoltaic solar installation was shown off on its parking ramp.

The 348 solar photovoltaic panels will produce 100,000 kilowatts of energy--or enough to run about nine homes each year, according to city information.  

Anne Hunt, who works for the city, says that when it comes to energy efficiency, “I’m not sure people think of a parking ramp," adding, "This is definitely the greenest ramp in the metro area."

It complements the $2.5 million solar thermal array that went onto the RiverCentre’s rooftop earlier this year, which is considered to be the largest of its kind in the Midwest, according to city information. (See the story from The Line here.)

The two installations, which use different solar technologies, will help the RiverCentre to dramatically reduce its carbon footprint by 2012, she explains.  

Looking all over the country, “I can’t find another public building that has two different solar technologies,” she says.

Other related energy-efficiency work has recently been underway at the parking ramp as well.

For example, high-pressure sodium lights were swapped out for energy-efficient fluorescent lamps, while a couple of electric-car charging stations have also been added, she says.  

Already, the building gets power from District Energy St. Paul, which “operates the largest, most successful, biomass-fueled hot water district heating system in North America,” its website states.

As one more layer to the project, the RiverCentre complex is part of the special Energy Innovation Corridor that highlights various energy projects along the in-progress Central Corridor Light Rail line.

Funding for the $750,000 worth of energy-efficiency measures at the ramp comes partly from the federal stimulus package.  

These initiatives save money while also producing clean energy, Hunt says.


Source: Anne Hunt, spokesperson, City of St. Paul
Writer: Anna Pratt

To design a public art sculpture for the West 7th Community Center Park in St. Paul, local artist Estela De Paola de Lerma collaborated with Girl Scout Troop 52512.

The sculpture celebrates the transformation of the park, which was perceived as unsafe just a couple of years ago. Today, the park includes a jungle gym, swings, and other play areas, according to the Pioneer Press.  

In a first workshop with the children, the artist went over “the basics of three-dimensional art, public art guidelines, and the purposes of public art,” she explains.  

Afterward, the children came up with some ideas that they used to create cardboard models. A final model incorporated everyone’s voices.   

From there, de Lerma crafted a life-sized model out of foam core, adding a base to comply with the city’s requirements.

The resulting sculpture, titled “Our World,” came together through donations, including powder-coating from the city, that covered thousands of dollars of expenses.

The process took about a year. “The girls couldn’t weld, but they did the design. The ideas are theirs,” she says of the eight-foot-tall metal sculpture.

In the piece, Girl Scouts are shown hand-in-hand embracing a yellow globe.

Each row of figures is painted to correspond with a different level of the Girl Scouts.

Their message reflects the fact that they care about the world, according to de Lerma, who has a daughter in Girl Scouts. The figures come in all shapes and sizes. “Everyone is included, that’s why it’s ‘Our World’,” she says.

The girls’ names and troop also appear on the piece.

“My generation wouldn’t believe that a child could be a sculptor,” she says.

De Lerma says she was interested in the project because it proves that public art involving children can “be more than a mural. It’s a nice way of connecting the community with the place and the art” and with self-expression.


Source: Estela De Paola de Lerma
Writer: Anna Pratt

Venture North Bike Walk and Coffee, which had its grand opening on Oct. 8, is the first bike shop of any sort to make its home in North Minneapolis.

Its added emphases on walking and coffee make it a unique hub, with everything from bike paraphernalia to classes on healthy living, according to city information.

Additionally, Venture North's first day of business coincided with the unveiling of new bike lanes on the nearby Emerson and Fremont avenues.

The city is a partner in the shop; it provided startup money for the place through a federal grant, while, further down the line, as much as $350,000 could help sustain the shop, according to MPR.

The city also selected Redeemer Center for Life, a nonprofit community developer that’s based on the North Side, to manage the shop.

“The goal of the initiative is to improve access for affordable physical activity opportunities among north Minneapolis residents,” a prepared statement from the city reads.

Venture North will also be hosting biking, walking and running clubs, along with a jobs program for youth.

The local Dogwood Coffee Co. helped put in place the coffee and espresso bar, according to city information.

Although the shop will cater to people of all ages and athletic abilities, the store’s manager, Jacob Flinsch-Garrison says in a prepared statement that “we will be especially oriented toward serving the needs of those who are getting into bicycling or walking for the first time, or who have not done so for a while."

“Venture North is committed to making each of our store’s visitors feel welcome. Our motto is ‘gratitude, not attitude,’” he says.

Source: City of Minneapolis
Writer: Anna Pratt

The 1853 Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery in Minneapolis, where thousands of the city’s earliest settlers are buried, was the backdrop for a recent benefit concert.

It featured Jeremy Messersmith, a local musician whose 2010 album, “The Reluctant Graveyard,” has songs that are based on some of the cemetery’s historic figures. Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles also performed.  

The concert raised around $10,000 to help restore the cemetery’s steel and limestone pillar fence, which has long been in disrepair, according to Sue Hunter Weir, who chairs Friends of the Cemetery, which organized the event.  

It also drew a crowd of about 1,200 people, many of whom had never been to the cemetery before. “That kind of attention is good for us,” she says.  

Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery, which is the city’s oldest, is among the 25 historic preservation projects that are competing for dollars through the Partners in Preservation contest, which The Line covered here.

Through the competition, which closes this week, the public has a chance to help pick preservation projects that will get a portion of a $1 million grant that’s being offered jointly by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  

A couple of years ago the Friends group jumpstarted the $1.4 million preservation effort with an “Adopt a Picket” campaign. Of 3,510 pickets, nearly 700 have been adopted so far, according to Weir.

Since then, the gates lining Cedar Avenue and Lake Street, and parts of the fence have been restored, but much of it still needs fixing up, she explains.

The fence is a priority because it protects the cemetery. Despite its status on the National Register of Historic Places, the cemetery has been described as endangered. Only a few years ago, “Some sections [of the fence] were so bad that people could push it in with their hands,” she says.   


Source: Sue Hunter Weir, chair, Friends of the Cemetery
Writer: Anna Pratt

The idea for the Museum in the Streets: Lake Street project came to Joyce Wisdom, who heads the Lake Street Council, when she was on a trip to Connecticut a couple of years ago.

Taking a self-guided tour down certain streets in one town, she learned all kinds of interesting tidbits about the area’s history, according to Cara Letofsky, who is a project volunteer.

A number of plaques placed here and there along the street told of the town's development through words and pictures.

Wisdom contacted the Museum in the Streets company about the possibility of bringing the same kind of displays to Lake Street in Minneapolis.

It's something that piqued the interest of many other community members, and the council got to work on the project, Letofsky says.

So far, the council has raised about one-third of the $150,000 needed for the project, which will include 20 plaques along Lake Street.

Meanwhile, a dozen volunteers are in the process of researching sites to be highlighted on the tour. “We’re looking for sites that have a good story and are good for illustrations or photos,” she says.  

In the process, Letofsky is learning about such bygone places as the 1905 Wonderland Amusement Park, Minneapolis Harvester Works--a well-known farm equipment company--and the Nicollet Ballpark, where the Minneapolis Millers played from 1896 to 1955.

“We came across a photo of four members of the baseball team in new cars that were bought from a dealer on Lake Street,” she says.  

Other venerable places, such as Ingebretsen’s Scandinavian gift shop and the 1928-built Midtown Exchange building, are still around.

To help passersby make the connections, a brochure will outline the walking tours. “The series of panels that makes up each tour will invite people to discover Lake Street’s unique story at their own pace, over the course of an afternoon or on return visits.”  

Letofsky says that the group is interested in the project as a way to “build the vitality of Lake Street and its business community,” adding, “It’s an economic development tool.”  

The council plans to mount the displays next spring.

Source: Cara Letofsky, spokesperson for Museum in the Streets: Lake Street
Writer: Anna Pratt

This week, local residents will have several opportunities to weigh in on the redesign of Webber Park in North Minneapolis.

Landform, a Minneapolis-based landscape architecture firm, is leading the master-planning process with the Minneapolis park board.

As a part of an early information-gathering process, it'll host a public meeting, studio time, and open house between Sept. 29 and Oct. 1, along with an online survey.

The 22-acre Webber Park is a wooded facility that has a pond, swimming pool, wading pool, playing field, tennis and basketball courts, and a playground and recreation center, according to park board information.

Roberta Englund, who heads the nearby Folwell and Webber-Camden neighborhood groups, describes the park as a comfortable and pretty urban area that’s “an important community attribute [that] hasn’t had the attention it deserves."

A big draw at the popular park is the annual Victory Labor Day Races and Community Picnic, according to Englund.

The well known “woodchopper statue” and Webber Park Library are also on the grounds, she says. 

But the park has a number of issues that need to be addressed, including a lack of parking.

Also, the swimming pool needs to be replaced. “We don’t have enough water features here. The priority is making it considerably more accessible,” she says.     

Other issues at the site center on reforestation, tornado damage, and inadequate lighting, she adds.

Whether the library should stay put, expand, or relocate, is also up in the air.

While ideas for the park are still in an early stage, the idea of enhancing the park's connection to the nearby Shingle Creek and Mississippi River in some way has come up, she says.

Englund hopes that people will take the time to voice their opinions about how the park should be configured. “It’s a major project that has a great deal to do with the visioning of parks and [their] role in recreation in North Minneapolis neighborhoods,” she says, adding, “It’ll be a careful look at how the land is used.”

Construction will begin next summer, while the park’s grand re-opening is planned for the summer of 2013, according to park board information.

Source: Roberta Englund, leader for Folwell and Webber-Camden neighborhood groups
Writer: Anna Pratt

At its Sept. 21 meeting, the Minneapolis park board initiated a 45-day public comment period on the RiverFIRST proposal to revitalize some key parts of the Upper Mississippi riverfront.

It's the next step toward making the plan a reality.

The proposal lays out various design concepts and an implementation plan for “problem-solving” parks, walking trails and other amenities for the river area, mainly between North and Northeast Minneapolis, according to information from the Minneapolis Riverfront Development Initiative (MRDI), which is leading the charge.

RiverFIRST is the product of a collaboration between MRDI project manager Mary deLaittre, the Tom Leader Studio in Berkeley, Calif., Kennedy & Violich Architecture (TLS/KVA) in Boston and New York financing consultants HR&A.

For months, the proposal has undergone an extensive editing and community engagement process, fleshing out an earlier version that won MRDI’s international design competition, according to project information.

In the proposal, five priority projects, all of which are doable over the next handful of years “exemplify ‘re-sourcing’ the river, while eliminating as many barriers as possible,” to help lay the foundation for future riverfront development, deLaittre says in a prepared statement.

For starters, a riverfront trail system that would go through Farview Park in North Minneapolis would join other existing city and regional parks and trails to form a “user-friendly network of commuter and recreational connections, most notably across the Interstate 94 trench cutting off Northsiders from the river,” a prepared statement reads.   

A number of floating BioHaven Islands on the river could help improve water quality while also providing habitat for plants and animals.   

The plan also calls for a new Scherer Park that would take advantage of park-owned property along the river in Northeast.

Separately, the Northside Wetlands Park “transforms significant acreage from the existing Port of Minneapolis.”  

Finally, an historic park that leads into the downtown area could be restored, according to MRDI information.

Going beyond the five-year projects, “The Draft RiverFIRST Proposal has the potential to create the largest expanse of new public and green space since the Minneapolis Parks system was first created over 100 years ago,” a prepared statement about the project reads.


Source: Information from the Minneapolis Riverfront Development Initiative
Writer: Anna Pratt

On Sept. 12, a new youth-sized synthetic-turf soccer field opened at Currie Park in Minneapolis's Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

It replaced a nondescript grass and dirt field that buckled up in some places, according to Park Board commissioner Scott Vreeland.

The soccer field is a part of a larger, ongoing effort to improve the park’s facilities, including expanding the existing Brian Coyle Community Center. “Folks at Brian Coyle had been advocating for more resources,” he says.

To make the soccer field a go in the short term, Hennepin County provided a $295,000 grant from its youth sports program, which is funded by the Target Field ballpark tax, while the Park Board contributed $20,000, according to park board information.

Other collaborators included the Pillsbury United Communities, West Bank Community Coalition, and Cedar Riverside Youth Council.

More informally, the community’s elders helped figure out how to install the field to best serve the children. They also got the community behind it. “It’s a thing people wanted. It wasn’t particularly controversial. Everyone saw it as a win-win,” he says.  

In a diverse area where reaching a consensus can often be difficult, the soccer field is a visible community-building place where people “can go and meet people and kick the ball around,” he says. “It inspires me when I go by.”

He hopes the field gets used a lot. “It gives the opportunity for people to put aside their differences and get together in one space.”

Stewart Park has already gotten similar improvements while East Phillips Park is next.


Source: Scott Vreeland, commissioner, Minneapolis Park Board
Writer: Anna Pratt

The Central Corridor light rail line is the inspiration for an extensive, three-year creative placemaking initiative called Irrigate.

The project, which is a partnership between Springboard for the Arts, TC LISC, and the city of St. Paul, recently received a $750,000 grant from a newly formed consortium of arts funders called ArtPlace.

ArtPlace, which brings together public and private groups, is investing $11.5 million in 34 creative placemaking projects all over the country, according to Irrigate information.

As promoters of the first project of this type, ArtPlace "aims to drive revitalization across the country by putting the arts at the center of economic development," a prepared statement reads.

For Irrigate, local artists will be trained in creative placemaking, according to Springboard executive director Laura Zabel.

From there, Irrigate will be "mobilizing and activating hundreds of artist-led projects in partnership with businesses and neighborhood groups," she says.

In general, the projects should address some issue or opportunity along the corridor, she says.

Zabel says that the idea is to "embed artists in economic and community development for the benefits they can provide to the community."

Conversely, the project "increases the community's [valuation] of its artists."

She's expecting a huge variety of projects in the areas of creative marketing and mapping.

They could help people find their way during construction or speak to a neighborhood's character. "We really see the Central Corridor and construction as an opportunity to engage artists in a really deep way," she says.

"We think it's an opportunity to demonstrate that artists are well-suited to help in moments of huge infrastructure [change]. They're creative and they think in new ways. They're intuitive, they're entrepreneurs, and they understand the challenges of small business owners."

Source: Laura Zabel, executive director, Springboard for the Arts
Writer: Anna Pratt

In the coming weeks, local residents will help decide what metro-area historic landmarks should receive a portion of a $1 million preservation grant.

The contest is part of a program called Partners in Preservation from American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. On Sept. 20, the program will announce the 25 competing sites, according to contest information.

From there, people can start to weigh in on Facebook, where they’ll be able to vote once daily through Oct. 12.

Royce Yeater, who heads the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Midwest office, says that the contest moved to Facebook this year as a way to connect with younger audiences. Traditionally the Trust has had an older demographic, he says.

The whole idea is to “raise the visibility and engage the citizenry of the U.S. in taking care of the cultural heritage and built environment,” he says.

Over the past five years, the program has delivered $5.5 million to 56 national historic sites, according to contest information. In 2010, American Express agreed to provide $10 million for another five-year run of the program.

It's a natural partnership, as American Express has long championed heritage sites around the world, including the Statue of Liberty, which it helped to get refurbished in the 1980s, he says. The company has also maintained ties to the Trust and the World Monuments Fund for many years.

This year, the partners decided to bring the program to the Twin Cities because “The feeling is that it’s an area that has a significant appreciation of heritage and it has great cultural resources and architecture,” he says, adding, “It also needs this kind of moral support."

He says it helps to have national organizations reach out to local-level places.

Further, the contest has provided an economic stimulus everywhere it has gone, he says. In some cases, even when projects failed to win the grant money, the publicity helped preservation groups leverage additional financial support.

In Chicago, the Pui Tak Center, which received $110,000 to restore vintage tile work in 2007, was able to launch a major capital campaign. “The program helped get it beyond emergency repair to major restoration,” he says.  

Further, the program has a jobs benefit. “We have been making the case that historic preservation is labor-intensive,” he says. “It continues to generate good, highly-skilled jobs at the local level.”  

Source: Royce Yeater, director, National Trust for Historic Preservation's Midwest office
Writer: Anna Pratt

North Minneapolis resident Bill Moore has seen many ups and downs in the area that he's lived in since the 1960s, particularly along Lowry Avenue North.

The avenue, which is bordered by a handful of neighborhoods, had declined through the years. This led the city to put together a revitalization plan for the street in 2002 and more recently, a Lowry Avenue Strategic Plan to spur development and strengthen business districts.  

A dozen businesses have opened, relocated, or reinvested in the area since 2008, according to a KARE11 story.

Beyond the street’s physical improvements, a few years ago, Moore and other neighbors came to understand that “We need to celebrate the North Side, to bring it together," says Moore, who leads the service-oriented Camden Lions.

That's when they came up with the idea for the Lowry Avenue Harvest Festival, which they decided to do yearly. Now, the third annual festival, which is coming up on Sept. 17, celebrates the change that’s already taken place on the street.

This year, the festival will be larger, blocking off part of Lowry Avenue North where it crosses Penn Avenue, all the way to Oliver Avenue, he explains.

Moore is expecting more than double last year’s attendance of 800 people.

There’ll be a car show, farmer’s market, food vendors, pie-baking contest, biggest-vegetable contest and various live acts, including a judo demonstration and local music groups, while a kid zone will have crop seed art, face painting, clowns, storytelling, and more.

The winning pie from the pie-baking contest will be featured on the menu for a week at the nearby Lowry Café, he says.

Places like the new Lowry Cafe have been instrumental in the process of turning around the street. “We’ve got a lot of good businesses on Lowry,” Moore says, including many that are involved with the festival.  

Also, various neighborhood groups, charitable organizations, and local businesses will have table displays. Volunteers will help collect donations for the local food shelf.

All in all, “I hope that this will help people get to know people from other neighborhoods and pull everyone together as a community instead of making it about different neighborhoods,” he says.  


Source: Bill Moore, neighborhood activist and president of Camden Lions
Writer: Anna Pratt

At a public meeting on Sept. 20, some residents of St. Paul’s East Side will float an idea for a natural foods coop.

Beth Butterfield, one of the meeting's organizers, says that she's wanted to see a coop close to home ever since she moved to the area seven years ago.

About the East Side, which is the city's largest and most diverse neighborhood, she says, “I love it. I have friends here and I want to stay. But there are things that it could have to be more attractive," such as a natural foods coop.

Earlier this summer, she started talking it over with others who share her enthusiasm. Looking at other successful examples, such as the Mississippi Market on Selby and Dale avenues in St. Paul and The Wedge in Minneapolis, they wondered, “What would it take to open one?”  

Butterfield hopes the meeting will help to provide a sense for the level of support for such a “completely grassroots undertaking,” she says.

She says the timing makes sense because more and more people are interested in local organic foods and where they come from. A local coop would also help keep dollars in the community, which is especially needed on the East Side, she says. 

A coop could include a cafe and meeting space and feature items from local youth farmers.

However, to become a reality, the coop needs a committed group of volunteers. “A coop is about member-ownership. It’s not owned by one person,” which, she says, is what makes it a challenge to organize.

From the planning to the running of such a place, “It’s not just about food. It’s about bringing people together,” she says, adding, “That really is our grander goal in this.”

Source: Beth Butterfield, East Side natural foods coop organizer
Writer: Anna Pratt

The four elements--earth, wind, fire and water--will soon be represented in a colorful street mural in Minneapolis’s Near North neighborhood.

It’s the second street mural to come to the city as a part of a program called Paint the Pavement, which "promotes community building and 'placemaking' through creating neighborhood art," according to its website.

Recently, a Corcoran neighborhood mural was unveiled to help calm traffic at the intersection of East 34th Street and 19th Avenue South.  

Since the volunteer-run Paint the Pavement started in St. Paul, about 15 street murals have been done through the program, according to Jun-Li Wang, a program volunteer.

“Not only does a mural give visual impact, it’s really the process that goes into making it that has the most value,” she says, adding, “Neighbors work together and meet one another in a way that they wouldn’t at a potluck."

Naturally, the cost depends on a mural’s size, but “a few gallons of paint can have a wonderful impact.”

And it makes the neighborhood more attractive, something that real estate agents have even noted in some home listings, she says.

Last summer, community members in Near North, inspired by similar Portland public art projects, started planning a mural for the intersection of 17th and Girard with a block club grant, according to Ariah Fine, a neighborhood activist.

Following the project's emphasis on youth, neighbors, creativity, color, and environment, people submitted illustrations through a design contest at a block party. A neighborhood youth’s portrayal of the four elements won, and a local artist helped adapt it for the street.  

The mural will start small and then gradually grow into four main swirling shapes, Fine explains.

The group chose this intersection because it’s close to the North High School football field, which gets lots of traffic. Also, neighbors close to the intersection were open to it, he says.

On Sept. 24, neighbors will come together to paint the mural. “It’ll be a community event, with more people than just from the block club,” he says. “I hope it’s the first of many opportunities to bring the community together.”


Source: Jun-Li Wang, Paint the Pavement; Ariah Fine, Near North neighborhood activist
Writer: Anna Pratt