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What do a tornado, a Ferris wheel, and your grandma’s basement all have in common? At Can Can Wonderland’s quirky and whimsical mini golf course, these are all themes to different golf holes. The best part? The holes are all designed and created by local artists.
 
Arriving at Can Can Wonderland feels a little like stepping into Willy Wonka’s Factory—only with more of a speakeasy vibe. Once you pull up to an old canning warehouse in St. Paul’s Hamline Midway neighborhood, you first enter through a big, red door. After following arrows down a secret stairwell, you arrive at a landing with two doors labeled as fire escapes. Don’t be fooled by the signage. Once you open the door, Can Can Wonderland appears and you step into a long, light-infused warehouse stretching about a quarter mile from end to end.
 
While the 18-hole mini-golf course is at the heart of the experience, there are also many other amusements to entertain the young and the young-at-heart. In the bar area, craft cocktail connoisseurs, Bittercube, provide the imaginative drink menu where you’ll find everything from spiked slushies to tasteful tikis. If you’re hungry, chow down on the selection of sweet and savory noshes such as hot dogs, mini donuts or cotton candy. Not in the mood for mini golf? Explore the boardwalk of attractions, filled with vintage pinball and arcade games. There is also a black box theater that hosts a variety show every Thursday night.
 
“We have a house band and music acts,” explains Jennifer Pennington, CEO, Can Can Wonderland. “You never know who the acts are going to be ahead of time. Last week we had a sitar player, a drone demonstration, a guy playing the tuba with a black light shining on him and an amazing juggling duo.”
 
Can Can Wonderland was first imagined in 2008 after Pennington’s husband, Chris, designed a golf hole for the Walker Art Center’s artist-designed mini golf. Their friend, Kristy Atkinson, who is also Can Can’s artistic director and co-partner, was one of the original minds behind the Walker’s artist golf. Working on the project together, they all realized they had a good thing going.
 
“It was so fun that we wondered why we didn't do this all the time,” says Pennington. “Then it was like, how can we make a business that is self-funded and free from being reliant on grants? We really started to take the concept seriously in 2010 when we moved to St. Paul and it developed from there.”
 
Fast forward several years. The Penningtons and Atkinson partnered with their commercial real estate broker, Rob Clapp, to become co-founders of Can Can Wonderland. They then looked to the community to help bring the space to life as the first arts-based public benefit corporation in Minnesota.
 
They had a call for artists, which received over 200 submissions, including entries from students whose teachers incorporated the project as part of their course curriculum. Two of the students’ submissions even made it into the final golf course.
 
After a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign and hours of planning, design, and coordination, the amusement space is now officially open to the public. Go grab a slushie and get your golf on.
 

The Hennepin Theatre Trust recently launched the seventh season of its window art installation series, Spirit: Made Here. Consisting of more than 30 window displays filling empty storefronts and commercial spaces in downtown Minneapolis, the project’s installations include an array of art mediums including painting, paper sculpting, photography, fiber art, three-dimensional mixed media, video and an interactive light show. The window art is on display in a six-block stretch between 6th Street and 10th Street from Hennepin Avenue to Marquette Avenue.
 
Founded in 2013, Made Here is the brainchild of the Hennepin Theatre Trust’s Cultural District Arts Coordinator, Joan Vorderbruggen. Working with the program’s panel, building owners, artists and the community, Vorderbruggen and her team curate and create a walkable, interactive showcase of emerging artists. “We are proud that we often times give opportunities to artists who may have never exhibited before,” says Vorderbruggen.
 
Made Here also focuses on bringing art to new and unexpected audiences, and increasing the public’s awareness of downtown Minneapolis as a cultural destination. Additionally, it seeks to create a downtown that is representative of people from diverse cultures and backgrounds.
 
On average, 40 percent of Made Here’s artists come from communities of color, with balanced gender representation. “Our panel is diverse, and actively networks in order to authentically invite different community members to participate,” Vorderbruggen explains. “A great secret to our success is having that big, diverse group.”
 
In this installment of Made Here, more than 75 Minnesota artists and students created art interpreting the theme of spirit. “Spirit: Made Here is filled with light, puppetry, images, projections, social justice and environmental justice,” says Vorderbruggen. “I'm really pleased that Made Here is a function of the community that it serves. When you think about downtown, it’s for everyone. We're all here. It's ours and we all share it.”
 
Spirit: Made Here is on display now through March 30, 2017. View an interactive walking tour map from Made Here’s website.
 
 
 
 

Barrel Theory Beer Company, a new taproom and brewery, will be coming to Lowertown in early 2017. Founded by three friends (two are former Surly employees), the brewery will emphasize a small-business atmosphere where the beer is fresh and the owners are onsite helping out.

While new breweries have popped up across the country and the Twin Cities in recent years, Barrel Theory promises to set itself apart. The differentiation begins with the space, which will seat about 95 guests inside a brickwork building dating from the 1800s and is next door to Dark Horse Bar & Eatery. Barrel Theory is leasing both the main level for a taproom and brewery, and also a basement for storing barrel-aged stouts and sour beers.

“There are a lot of breweries around the country where you can name that one beer they make,” says co-founder Brett Splinter, previously the director of technology at Surly. “We want people to think of us as consistent with our beer quality and with our customer experience.” The beers will be brewed by former Surly shift brewer Timmy Johnson, with friend Todd Tibesar, CPA, filling out the ownership team.

While Splinter and Johnson first met and bonded over homebrewing some years ago, their professional experience will set them apart from other breweries in the metro. “Tim is brewing at a very successful commercial brewery and here sits Todd, a guy who can tell us no to everything because he’s the finance guy,” Splinter says, both joking and serious.

With so many breweries in the Twin Cities, the Barrel Theory team drafted a business plan to make sure they stand out. Splinter cites Dangerous Man’s hyperlocal focus as an influence, as well as lessons learned from his friends at Surly. “After working for a bigger regional brewery, we wanted to keep ours small and very focused on getting fresh beer to our customers, and being able to interact with our customers very personally,” says Splinter.

The concept is to grow the Barrel Theory brand slowly and methodically. Most beer will be available at the brewery only, with limited kegs going to local beer-savvy bars. He expects fewer than 10 employees: the three owners, plus an assistant brewer, taproom manager and part-time bartenders to help with operations.

There are pros and cons to a large regional brewery or with a hyperlocal model, Splinter admits, but the personal touch of a small-scale operation connects with him and, he expects, with other beer drinkers in St. Paul. The brewery will not have a kitchen onsite, but will partner with Dark Horse to serve hot food right in the brewery, using a window between the buildings so customers don’t have to venture outside.

Though barrel is right in their name, not all the beer will be barrel-aged. The name is taken from Liebig's Law of the Minimum, an agricultural concept that states a product is only as good as its weakest ingredient. Liebig used a barrel metaphor. “If you stand a barrel on its end, no matter how big the barrel is it will only hold as much water as the shortest stave,” Splinter explains. The barrel imagery is perfect for a brewery but, more importantly, it fits with Barrel Theory’s emphasis on quality and consistency.
 

In 2013, John Pederson built the Firehouse Sauna, a mobile trailer-sized sauna that quickly moved from a personal project to something he shared with friends. It grew into the 612 Sauna Society, which will soon become the first sauna cooperative in the country.

Now registered as a 308B cooperative business, the group just completed a crowdfunding campaign to build a new sauna that will officially launch the new format. A team of 40 volunteers will build the facility and then launch the coop with a February residency in the courtyard at Surly Brewing Company.

The Society’s mission is to improve dialogue and community, bringing sauna to the people in the spirit of traditional Finnish culture, where saunas are a gathering spot for relaxation and rumination. Sometimes 612 will park at a brewery, other times at a public or commercial setting like Como Park or IKEA.

“The thing we do is put [the sauna] on wheels and take it to different locations,” explains Teke O’Reilly, 612’s campaign manager. Mobility brings sauna culture to all walks of life, and it presents an element of intrigue that further attracts people, he explains.

Last year 612 Society teamed with the mobile Little Box Sauna, hitting locations in St. Paul, Minneapolis and Bloomington. “[Little Box Sauna] kind of melded with 612 Sauna Society,” O’Reilly explains. “That brought people out of the woodwork so we knew we have a powerful community,” he says. Little Box Sauna is a separate entity from the Society, which is why 612 is building a new unit this winter.

“The objective is to make as much sauna as possible available for as many people as we can,” O’Reilly says. Though he’s been involved with the project since its early days with Pederson and other volunteers, the group is excited to turn 612 over to the member-owners.

612 Sauna Society has big plans for the future, rooted in the Scandinavian deep thought tradition. The group has spoken with the Minneapolis Parks Foundation about using the parks as a setting where disparate organizations can come together and relax, uniting in the cozy confines of a 150- to 180-degree sauna and talking about life and, perhaps, politics while relaxing together in a distinctly north country way. It’s only in the idea phase at present, but O’Reilly teems with excitement at the thought.

“The reality of that happening is almost profound,” he exclaims. “If we can truly find solutions to these difficult times that we live in through sauna, to me that gives me goosebumps.”

The new trailer will be roughly the size of a medium RV trailer and is open to the public by reservation. Coop members will pay a discount price, comparable to a grocery coop, but anyone can use the unit by making an advance reservation online due to limited space.
 
 
 
 

Earlier this month, Northeast Minneapolis-based Fair State Brewing Cooperative announced a major expansion into previously uncharted territory: St. Paul.
 
The cooperative’s 40,000-square-foot Creative Enterprise Zone production facility, just blocks from Urban Growler Brewing Company and Bang Brewing, is slated to supercharge its brewing capacity and substantially expand its distribution footprint.
 
According to CEO and co-founder Evan Sallee, the new space will start with an annual production capacity of 7,500 bbl—with room for growth, “[depending] on the eventual ale/lager mix.” Quoting Fair State management, CBS Minnesota reports that’s at least a five-fold capacity increase.

“The expansion will also give us a lot more flexibility to be creative in what we do. Our capacity to try new and interesting things is inherently limited by our commitment to keep certain core brands around all the time,” says Sallee. “Moving those brands off to a larger facility will allow us to spread our creative wings and play around a bit more while still providing the core beers that people have come to expect us to have available regularly.”
 
Those core brands include “traditional” craft beer styles like India pale ale, hefeweizen and pilsner. But after just two years of operation, Fair State has staked its claim to an underserved brewing niche: sour beers. Already on the national radar as Minnesota’s first cooperatively owned brewery, Fair State has earned national press (and awards) for its prolific sour program, which includes high(er)-volume kettle sours like Roselle and limited-release, barrel-aged beers like Paradisiac.
 
Fair State’s commitment to sour beer bled through to the design and execution of its new brewing system. “We have worked with our equipment manufacturer to design our brewing system with sour beers specifically in mind, so we will be able to turn out our kettle sours like Roselle with increased efficiency,” says Sallee.
 
Ultimately, says Sallee, Fair State’s expansion is about putting more beer in front of more people, irrespective of geography. In the short term, the brewery’s beer is likely to be available in more stores and taprooms across a wider swath of MSP. And, soon enough, Greater Minnesota customers will get their first consistent taste of its brews.
 
“One of Fair State's core missions is to bring high quality beer to more people,” he explains. “When our members in St. Paul have trouble getting beer because we can't make enough to service our back yard, that's a problem. So I hope that this project will allow us to better meet the demand locally and throughout Minnesota.”
 

 
The American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis, home to the largest population of urban American Indian people in Minnesota, continues its ongoing redevelopment into an area of cultural pride and community cohesion with a new proposed mixed-used housing development. The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians recently purchased a 37,367-square-foot parcel on Cedar Avenue, formerly occupied by Amble Hardware. The project will be called Mino-bimaadiziwin, Ojibwe for “living the good life.”
 
The site is “in the heart of the American Indian community” and located adjacent to a Blue Line light-rail station, explains Sam Strong of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians. Plans include demolishing the existing, blighted structures, and developing the site into a mixed-use property with approximately 115 units of affordable rental housing. The project would also include a healthcare clinic and a variety of social service programs for tribal members, and the Red Lake Band’s Minneapolis Embassy.
  
The Minneapolis-based Cuningham Group is the designing the project. “While nothing has been finalized on the design side, we are interested in making this a sustainable green project and are looking into our options,” says Strong.
 
About 2,100 Red Lake Band members plus their descendants live in the Twin Cities area. “We are excited to build a strong, healthy affordable housing community for Native Americans in this culturally significant area that will not only benefit our own tribal members, but also the entire Minneapolis community and Seward neighborhood,” said Darrell G. Seki, Sr., Chair of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, in a prepared statement.
 
The Red Lake Band has long been a leader among Indian Tribes and has been at the forefront of numerous initiatives in Indian Country. Mino-bimaadiziwin, a new urban mixed-use project “is important as an investment in our community,” Strong says, “and will help meet the ongoing housing, health and other service needs of our people.”
 
 

In 2006, Community Housing Development Corporation (CHDC), a Minneapolis nonprofit developer and owner of 44 affordable-housing properties, opened a project for homeless veterans. Next to the Minneapolis VA Medical Center in South Minneapolis, CHDC and partners renovated four former officers’ quarters and constructed two new buildings to create 140 affordable units for homeless vets.
 
“That project was incredibly successful,” says Elizabeth Flannery, CEO, CHDC. “Since it opened, we’ve regularly had a waiting list of more than 300 people.”
 
Six years ago, CHDC staff began talking about expanding the 2006 building. “In addition to the waiting list, which needed to be addressed with more affordable housing, we learned that the veterans community is huge and has a range of needs,” Flannery says. “We also learned we need more support services than we originally projected.”
 
“Moreover, when vets finally have housing they can afford, they have the opportunity to think about what’s next, whether that’s counseling, employment, getting their VA entitlements in order or getting treatment,” she adds. In other words, “Housing is critical. Housing is a foundation to everything.”
 
Last week, CHDC and partners broke ground on Veterans East. Located adjacent to the 2006 project, near the Blue Line light-rail station, Veterans East will include 100 affordable units, and will provide on-site support services for health care, case management, life skills, financial management, VA benefits, and education and employment resources.
 
UnitedHealth Group, based in Minnetonka, is the project’s largest private investor; the organization is providing $5.2 million in equity using low-income housing tax credits approved by the State of Minnesota. The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, which finances affordable housing, is providing $7.7 million in deferred loan funds. Additional funding comes from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, Hennepin County, affiliates of CHDC, and $290,000 in energy and sales tax rebates.
 
Eligible veterans—those who have experienced chronic homelessness—will pay 30 percent of their income toward rent. When completed in Summer 2017, Veterans East will provide permanent supportive housing for veterans struggling with homelessness.
 
The five-story, energy-efficient building, designed by LHB Architects, will also have a community room with a fireplace, a kitchenette and laundry facilities. In addition to its transit-friendly location near the VA Hospital, Veterans East will be adjacent to Minnehaha Park, and near Lake Nokomis and other area amenities.
 
Since January 2015, Minnesota has kept a registry of homeless veterans to help identify opportunities for housing and other services. So far, 600 vets have been housed, but many more remain homeless. “Once vets get housing they can get work,” Flannery says.
 

 
On Friday, the letterpress printing company founded by Ben Levitz, Studio on Fire, holds its grand opening at its new location in the Creative Enterprise Zone (CEZ) in St. Paul. Now housed in a 1940s industrial building replete with enormous steel structural beams, large windows, high ceilings and operable garage doors (the building formerly housed a semi-tractor service garage, a garage door company and an adult arts program), Studio on Fire has room for its 15 employees and dozens of heavy-duty machines (many of them vintage printing presses).
 
When the building came on the market, “We put into motion something we’d wanted to do for a long time: Own our space,” he says. Previously, Studio on Fire was located in Northeast Minneapolis: before that, in Levitz’s basement. He also cites the neighborhood, which is part of St. Anthony Park, as an impetus for the move. Local mainstays Bang Brewing and Foxy Falafel will be selling libations and food, respectively, during the event. The neighborhood, which is experiencing a micro-brew boom, also includes Lake Monster, Urban Growler and Burning Brothers.
 
Studio on Fire, Levitz explains, specializes in “pressure-based printing. Letterpress, foil stamping, engraving—they all use pressure. That means our equipment is very heavy and most of it is antique, including 1950s and 60s Heidelbergs for letterpress printing.” As a result, Studio on Fire’s work—which includes business cards, packaging and invitations for individuals and large corporations—is visually striking and tactile.
 
You can watch the press operators at work through the windows in the Dogwood Coffee shop next door. Levitz likens the set up to “a tap room,” where visitors and coffee aficionados can get a first-hand look at the physical aspects of pressure-based printing. During Studio on Fire’s grand opening, the gang will take the printing outside, as well: a large steamroller will be used to create a giant print. They’ve done it before: go here for the video.  
 
Studio on Fire’s grand opening and Steamroller Print Fair is Friday, July 29, 1-7 p.m., 825 Carleton Street, St. Paul. Take the Green Line to the Raymond Avenue station and walk north. You won’t miss it. And it’s free.
 

 
Little Mekong Night Market, a project of the Asian Economic Development Association (AEDA) in St. Paul, just keeps gaining momentum. This year, the summer festival (Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24) takes place at the proposed Little Mekong Plaza on Western Avenue to bring in more vendors and artists. The market also includes an artwalk showcasing the exhibition “MANIFEST: Refugee Roots” inside the recently opened Western U Plaza—a community-driven, transit-oriented development. Get your Green Line light-rail pass here.
 
The exhibition will feature local artists and cultural groups, including Koua Mai Yang, Ifrah Mansour, the Somali Museum, the Immigrant History Research Center and an art mandala by monks of the Gyuto Wheel of Dharma Monastery. This year’s market includes another new feature: a kid-zone with interactive exhibits from the Minnesota Children’s Museum, Mobile Comedy Suitcase and sParkit Lantern Making. Three stages throughout the market will showcase performances by Hmong artists, such as LOTT, Jayanthi Kyle, Mu Daiko and Mayda.
 
For those new to the area, “Little Mekong is the Asian business and cultural district in Saint Paul, Minnesota,” according to Little Mekong’s website. “Located between Mackubin and Galtier streets along University Avenue, the district boasts a diversity of cultures, top rated restaurants and unique shopping experiences. Visitors come to Little Mekong to experience the unique culture and flavors of Southeast Asia.”
 
 

 
The old Miller Bag Building, plonked on the outskirts of Northeast Minneapolis’ commercial core, is pretty big. Actually, the hulking four-story structure and its three outbuildings are legitimately out of scale with their surroundings.
 
But scale isn’t necessarily influential. Since 2013, when the anchor tenant (the former Sam Miller Bag Company, now Airtex Design Group) moved to a modern facility in the Northeast Broadway industrial zone, the building has been about 80 percent empty. According to the Star Tribune, the rapidly changing manufacturing landscape forced building owner (and Airtex shareholder) Mike Miller “to reassess our manufacturing needs” and find a more suitable space.
 
Not one to leave an historically significant building hanging, Miller brought in the Ackerberg Group to help re-imagine Miller Bag as a proper 21st century mixed-use space. They renamed the complex the Miller Textile Building and retained RoehrSchmitt Architecture in NE Minneapolis to craft a suitably ambitious plan for adaptive reuse.
 
Three years on, the $8 million redevelopment is paying off. Ackerberg recently finalized a lease with St. Louis Park-based Stahl Construction, which agreed to take the entire second floor — a major get that brings dozens of jobs from the suburbs to the urban core, and brings the 48,000-square-foot Miller Textile to 35 percent occupancy. (Other leases are in the works, so it’s likely that building’s actual occupancy ratio is higher.)
 
“We renovated the building to create class B office and warehouse space with new infrastructure to serve the burgeoning need for office and retail space in Northeast Minneapolis, [and] house the explosive entrepreneurial energy attracted to this established arts district.,” says architect Michael Roehr, principal and co-founder of RoehrSchmitt.
 
The building was sorely in need of an overhaul. “We basically gutted the building to replace all the basic systems: plumbing, HVAC, electrical and lighting, and sprinklers,” Roehr says. “The main entry, core and circulation system was relocated to the center of the building, with new restrooms and a lobby featuring images and artifacts that celebrate the building's manufacturing history.”
 
The remodel also added and expanded windows to create “bright, welcoming and efficient spaces for professional and creative businesses to take advantage of the building’s unique environment,” he adds. A problematic part of the third floor was removed entirely “to create a dramatic double-height space,” and an “old-growth subfloor” was salvaged and reincorporated into design elements throughout the complex.
 
Roehr is proud of Miller Textile’s economical, resource-light, even low-key redo. “The project was accomplished on a tight budget, and represents a case study in efficiently wringing value and relevance from a building that would typically remain abandoned or be threatened with demolition to make way for something new,” he enthuses.
 
It’s convenient, too. According to Roehr, Miller Textile has upwards of 80 free, off-street parking spaces and, when complete, will boast plenty of on-site bike parking.
 
 

The Big Picture Project (BPP), a public-private partnership established to ensure and strengthen affordable housing along the Green Line, has just released a progress report showing it's already exceeded the halfway mark for its 10-year goals.
Since 2011, when the collaboration began:

·         3,573 units of affordable housing have been built or preserved—80% of Big Picture Project's 10-year goal.
·         968 lower income families have benefited from resources that help them stay in their homes—61% of the 10-year goal.
·         Of the 6,388 new housing units built along the Green Line, 1,269 (20%) are designated affordable.
·         More than $4.2 billion has been invested in residential and commercial development (not including the new stadiums) along the existing Green Line—more than half-way to the projected goal of $7 billion worth of development over 30 years.

“Five years ago, we were uncertain that our collective resources could meet the Big Picture's 'stretch' goal of creating and preserving 4,500 affordable housing units along the Green Line by 2020," says Russ Stark, St. Paul City Council and BPP member. "But we were able to meet that goal—years ahead of schedule—by focusing attention and resources on the need for affordable housing as part of new development along the Central Corridor."

To ensure people with low incomes benefit from access to light rail transportation by finding affordable housing nearby, the Big Picture Project originally set out three objectives along the Central Corridor:

·         Invest in the production and preservation of long-term affordable housing;
·         Stabilize the neighborhood and invest in activities that help low-income people stay in their homes and benefit from the new transit opportunity;
·         Strengthen families’ stability and quality of life through coordinated investments in housing, transportation, and access to jobs and education.
 
“The Big Picture Project has benefited stakeholders along the Corridor precisely because it looked at the big picture," says James Lehnhoff, vice president of housing development at Aeon and a BPP member. "The project recognized the vital interconnections between people, transit, employment, housing and amenities. As an affordable housing developer and owner, we appreciate this incredible interconnectivity because it has the ability to provide new or expanded opportunities for our residents.”

While the Big Picture's first five years have produced impressive results, the group's work will continue with a focus on highlighting successful examples of mixed-income housing—such as 2700 University, a project by Indiana-based private developer Flaherty and Collins—and addressing challenges faced by low income renters who are having a harder time maintaining and finding quality affordable housing. Residents with no financial buffers to absorb housing cost increases are often the first to feel the pressures of displacement. As the market potential of the Central Corridor increases, the collaboration wants to ensure that the most vulnerable members of the community don't get pushed aside.  If they want to stay in their community, they have good options.

"This is the next phase of the Big Picture's work," says Gretchen Nicholls, program officer at Twin Cities LISC and the project's coordinator. "We'll keep up the pace of affordable housing solutions, and share what we've learned with other emerging transit corridors as the region-wide system is built out. We're encouraged by the amazing progress we've made, and we'll continue striving toward an equitable economy—one in which everyone can participate and prosper."

Starting this July, the Big Picture Project will host a series of convenings focusing on promising solutions and innovative strategies to cultivate communities of opportunity along our regional transit corridors.
 

 
 

If WOODCHUCK USA’s widely shared Instagram post is to be believed, it took the ascendant woodworking company all night to move its headquarters in late March. But they didn’t go too far: WOODCHUCK moved just 500 feet — give or take — down 9th St SE in Minneapolis’ Marcy-Holmes neighborhood. The company’s destination? The old RyKrisp factory, which WOODCHUCK founder Ben VandenWylemenberg purchased with three other partners a few months back.
 
The sprawling, low-slung building is becoming a 21^st-century fabrication hub with a decidedly local maker flavor. WOODCHUCK USA is the main tenant, but other small-scale makers have already moved (burrowed?) in and set up shop, including a video production company (HECCO). WOODCHUCK has designs on about 30 percent of the space, leaving the balance for smaller tenants.
 
“We had been looking for the right building for our business and other businesses committed to building the economy with American-made products,” VandenWylemenberg told Kevyn Burger of Minnesota Business back in January, shortly after closing on the property. According to VandenWylemenberg, the property’s convenient location between the dense St. Anthony Main area and the I-35W/University Ave/4th St SE interchange is a perfect fit with WOODCHUCK’s hip vibe and distribution needs.
 
The location is also probably an asset as WOODCHUCK ramps up hiring. The company had about 30 employees as of earlier this year, but as orders accelerate, the headcount is likely to rise sharply.
 
WOODCHUCK first made its name in wooden phone cases. Its rapidly expanding wooden accessory lineup now includes flasks, bottle openers, coasters, money clips, electronics sleeves and even maps. WOODCHUCK sells direct through its website, and to a growing lineup of retail partners: boutique stores, high-end chains, and big box stores (including MSP-area Targets) as far away as California, South Florida and New England.
 
According to the Pioneer Press, the RyKrisp factory closed in early 2015, after parent company ConAgra decided that the market for RyKrisp’s distinctive — some would say woody-tasting— crackers wasn’t salvageable.
 
Ironically, just as VandenWylemenberg and his partners were doing their due diligence on the old RyKrisp plant, word came (via the Star Tribune) that three former Pillsbury executives had purchased the cracker brand. The beloved (to some) crackers are likely to find a second life, with a relaunch coming as early as this year — though the new manufacturing facility won’t be located in MSP.
 

“What is making the North Loop exciting and a gravitational point within Minneapolis?” asks Chris Palkowitsch, an Urban Land Institute (ULI) Minnesota Young Leadership Group co-chair for the March 3 event #MSPswagger – Building a Talent Powerhouse.
 
“Why has Lowertown in St. Paul been named the best hipster neighborhood? And what’s the next area? Midway in St. Paul?” he continues. “What steps can be taken from successful areas of the city to create the next up and coming community; to grow a great urban environment for people to live—young, old and families alike.”
 
The answers, hope the organizers of #MSPswagger – Building a Talent Powerhouse, will be tossed into the conversation, put on the table, shared and discussed during the afternoon event at Vandalia Tower in the Creative Enterprise Zone of St. Paul —and over beers at Lake Monster Brewing next door.
 
Created in collaboration with Greater MSP, and to help boost its Make It. MSP initiative to attract and retain new talent to the area, #MSPswagger boldly wishes to assert that—despite our characteristic reluctance to brag—there’s a lot to boast about in our twin towns. “We really want the event to be a conversation, a dialogue,” Palkowitsch says. “We want to hear what creates MSP swagger. Let’s be proud of what we have.”
 
ULI is a nonprofit organization focusing on land use and development, so the discussion will be through a professional real estate lens—with an eye also on the power of placemaking. In other words, there’s more to this topic than The North, a conceptual and branding idea about MSP identity proposed by Eric Dayton that went viral last year. “The idea of The North is a bit of swagger, particularly in the branding,” Palkowitsch says.
 
“It’s about being proud of our successful and clean cities, our lakes and open space, our arts and culture, our great neighborhoods,” he continues. “Our event isn’t building on the ideas of The North so much as functioning as an additive by looking at issues of job creation and retention from the lens of real-estate and land-use professionals.”
 
According to the #MSPswagger webpage, the challenge in the next five years is to “overcome a predicted workforce shortage of 100,000” people. “Concise, strategic branding will enable the region to compete for talent nationally,” and critical to that endeavor is placemaking: “Creating a work, live, play culture will encourage long-term talent retention.”
 
“What better way is there to talk about these issues than during a program for the land-use industry,” says Aubrey Austin, director of member engagement for ULI MN. And at this point, there are more questions than answers.
 
“How do we talk about what is good about our region, and what’s working well, so we can better respond to the challenges ahead?” Austin suggests. “What should we be thinking about in the land-use industry, around development and places, so we can be better prepared for a growing population and new workforce? That leads to another question: How do we talk about our region to encourage people to move here?”
 
Moreover, Austin continues, “We need to ask: What attracts businesses to downtown? How do we figure out why businesses locate where they do? What’s so important about connectivity and transit-oriented development? How can we have a conversation that encourages people to contribute and be civically engaged with their city?”
 
Yes, Austin and Palkowitsch agree that MSP already has a lot going for it. But there’s more to be done.
 
“Part of ULI’s mission is to bring public and private entities together,” Palkowitsch says. “City and business leaders, city planners and marketing professionals all need to be part of the conversation.” The speakers for #MSPswagger reflect that variety. On the panel are: Chris Behrens, president and CEO of YA (a marketing firm that recently moved to downtown Minneapolis); Andrew Dresdner, an urban designer with Cuningham Group; and Kris Growcott, an entrepreneur.
 
“We’re hoping for an open discussion from different sectors talking about what’s important to them,” Austin says, “and finding common ground.”
 
To register for #MSPswagger – Building a Talent Powerhouse, go here.
 
 
 

The Green Line corridor isn’t the only area of MSP experiencing a boom in community-driven development. Two miles northwest of the Green Line’s Target Field terminus, at the heavily trafficked Penn Avenue/Golden Valley Road intersection in North Minneapolis’ Willard-Hay neighborhood, an ambitious mixed-use project is taking shape: The Commons at Penn Avenue.  
 
A four-story, block-long structure, Commons at Penn will house 45 units of workforce housing, a host of community amenities and the 4,000 square foot Wirth Cooperative Grocery Store — MSP’s newest grocery co-op. Watson-Forsberg and LHB Corporation are co-developing the project.
 
Building Blocks, a North Minneapolis nonprofit founded and overseen by native son (and former NBA star) Devean George, designed and financed Commons at Penn. Wirth Co-op is financed independently, thanks in part to a $500,000 federal grant, and will lease space in Commons at Penn’s ground floor.
 
If the current schedule holds, Commons at Penn and Wirth Co-op should open in spring 2016 — well in advance of the planned Penn Avenue BRT (C Line)’s debut later this decade.
 
“We’re shooting for an Earth Day opening for the co-op,” says Miah Ulysse, Wirth’s general manager.
 
The development will join nearby Broadway Flats in providing affordable housing and locally run retail along North Minneapolis’ densely populated Penn Avenue corridor.
 
According to Building Blocks, Commons at Penn’s residential component will feature a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units with touches common in downtown lofts: hardwood floors and nine-foot ceilings. Amenities include community rooms, an onsite fitness center and three laundry rooms.
 
Commons at Penn’s first floor will include a Northpoint Health & Wellness office. Though the Northpoint office won’t be a full-service clinic — the focus is on “community outreach with space for events and health education classes,” according to Building Blocks — the design does include two “flexible-use exam rooms.” Building Blocks will office in an adjacent suite.
 
Wirth Co-op’s arrival is another boost for the area, often considered a food desert: The closest full-service grocery store is the Cub Foods at Broadway and I-94, well over a mile to the east. Corner convenience stores and gas stations stock essentials and plenty of snack foods, but rarely fresh fruits, veggies or non-processed foods. According to TCYIMBY, about 40 percent of Wirth’s fresh food will be certified organic or natural; that proportion could increase as the co-op establishes itself in the neighborhood.
 
“Locally sourced items will be a huge focus for us, in addition to organic and natural,” says Ulysse.
 
As of mid-October, the most recent reporting date, Wirth Co-op had about 460 committed members out of a 500-member goal. Membership is $100 (one-time) per household, payable in $25 installments, and $15 for those qualifying for public assistance.
 

Good Grocer, an independent grocery store tucked into a low-slung building near the old Kmart at Lake Street and I-35W, has only been open since mid-June. Yet it’s already received coverage in a half-dozen press outlets, from the Star Tribune and the Huffington Post.
 
What makes Good Grocer different? Founded by Kurt Vickman, long-serving (now former) pastor at Edina’s Upper Room Church, Good Grocer is part co-op, part nonprofit social enterprise and all good.
 
According to its website, Good Grocer stocks more than 3,000 items, focusing mostly on fresh fruits and vegetables, and minimally processed meats, dairy and baked goods. Unlike a traditional co-op, whose members pay fees on joining, Good Grocer regulars pay for their memberships by volunteering at least 2.5 hours per month at the store: stocking shelves, working checkout, whatever needs to be done. In return, they get 25 percent discounts to sticker price on everything they buy at the store that month. Good Grocer has at least 300 members and counting.
 
The goal, says Vickman, is inside-out empowerment — the inverse of the standard outside-in, or top-down, charity model. Though Vickman doesn’t keep detailed statistics on members’ economic status, the immediate neighborhood is among Minneapolis’ poorest precincts.
 
Good Grocer helps locals who “value eating well, but can’t afford the ever-increasing cost of food” to partake in a food quality experience usually reserved for Whole Foods shoppers. By giving members an outlet to give back to their fellow shoppers in a tangible way, Good Grocer is literally helping people help themselves.
 
“Low-income people aren’t helpless or giftless,” says Vickman. “We all have gifts and strengths within us. It’s [Good Grocer’s] mission to draw those gifts and strengths out of our members and empower them to define themselves in terms of their potential, not their limitations.”
 
Good Grocer also addresses its densely populated environs’ glaring lack of fresh food options. Its corner of South Minneapolis doesn’t meet the technical definition of “food desert,” but the Midtown Global Market and the Uptown Cub — the closest reliable sources for fresh food — aren’t close at hand.
 
“We thought we’d get some positive feedback about our choice of location,” says Vickman, “but we were really taken aback by the number of people who came in to say, ‘Man, thank you for opening a grocery store here.’”
 
Then again, Good Grocer isn’t a straightforward charity. The blocks to the north and west of Good Grocer are economically diverse — and, in some areas, downright affluent — so a fair number of locals can afford to shop at the store without much regard to price. Good Grocer counts on those folks to patronize the store in numbers and pay full price for their purchases. Full-price customers subsidize in-need members who rely on the 25 percent discount and ensure that Good Grocer can afford to stock top-quality food items.
 
Indeed, Vickman sees Good Grocer as a low-friction way for people of means to give back in a more meaningful way than simply donating some cans to a food pantry or church around the holidays. The store’s motto is “Let us never tire of doing good,” a Scriptural reference to Christians’ charitable duties. That motto neatly summarizes Vickman’s choice to leave his relatively comfortable appointment at Upper Room and strike out as a social entrepreneur.
 
“I decided that I wanted to spend more of my time living the themes I was preaching, rather than just talking about them,” he explains.
 
Despite Good Grocer’s ecclesiastical pedigree, the store is strictly non-denominational — non-religious, actually. “No one’s handing out tracts at the door,” says Vickman, who notes that the store’s membership base is a reflection of the neighborhood’s racial and denominational diversity: first- and second-generation immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa shop and volunteer alongside the area’s established European and African-American residents.
 
“We’re not looking for help or support from outside the community here,” says Vickman. “We’re proud to be creating our own solutions.”