Strong Local Economy : Featured Stories

Meet the quirky, inviting business district at 28th and Johnson in Northeast Minneapolis--an urban village that, at least for now, seems to have found an elusive middle ground: it's got enough enticing amenities to attract strollers, shoppers, and eaters, but it's not well enough known for there to be parking problems and half-hour waits for a table.

Six friends who live near the struggling intersection of 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis wanted to see what they could do to revitalize their neighborhood. So, in the middle of an economic downturn and against most of the odds, they formed a nonprofit to create, of all things, an art center centered on fire. They worked hard and got lucky, and the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center is set to open in October with classes in welding, forge building, jewelry making, and blacksmithing. If their luck holds, the CAFAC will be also be a crucible for change in the 'hood.

When Lili Hall moved her hip marketing agency, KNOCK, from the Warehouse District into a massively remodeled former grocery market on Glenwood Avenue, eyebrows were raised. After all, the street was best known for the municipal impound lot, vacant storefronts, and vast stretches of cracked concrete. But Hall is sure that Glenwood's creative resources (International Market Square, for one) and its role as a gateway to downtown foretell a cool future for the struggling street--and she intends to help it happen.

On his web site Olive & Myrtle, Saint Paul designer/merchant Aaron Porvaznik sells beautiful, high-design things, from housewares to toys to bedspreads, that aren't exactly necessities. So why is he thriving at a time when most folks don't have many spare dollars to spend? It might have something to do with the passionate care he takes to make sure that everything on Olive & Myrtle is sustainably sourced--and his conviction that good design and sustainability are practically the same thing.

The eleven people who formed the "innovation advocacy force" called MOJO Minnesota have been working hard to make it easier for smart money to reach bold entrepreneurs. They pushed hard for the recently passed Angel Investor Tax Credit, and, as Innovation and Jobs editor Dan Haugen found out when he talked to two of them, they're still on the front lines of the effort to fire up our state's startups.

When South Africans Roy Goslin and Diane Ferrandi were hired by an American firm and offered their pick of US locations, the couple chose Minneapolis/St. Paul because it's about the size of Cape Town. Within a few years they were working for themselves, importing wine from their homeland. But thanks to the bad rep that cheap South African wines had garnered, and their unfamiliarity with the Twin Cities food scene, they had an uphill climb. Today, after the World Cup, South Africa is trendy, Goslin and Ferrandi are old hands, and metro Minnesotans are getting a taste for fine vintages from the land of the springbok.

There's a pair of European-born marketers who, from a table in a literary coffee shop in Minneapolis, turn the earth itself into an ad platform. Dutchman Maikel van de Mortel and Icelander Bjorgvin Saevarsson stamp logos into snowbanks, draw slogans in dirt and dust, and plant flower gardens that spell out client identities. The Internet loves it, and so do the duo's mostly European and coastal-US clients. Is this the earthy new face of advertising?

The Twin Cities teem with cool crafters whose edgy and beautiful creations go miles beyond hand-painted "Bless This Mess" signs and laser-cut rocks that bid us "Imagine." For a long time these artists' main outlets were occasional crafts fairs and web sites. Then along came Sarah Sweet and Angela Lessman, who crafted the big, colorful, funky consignment store in Northeast Minneapolis with the disarming name. All it took for the shop to succeed was a dream, a near-failure, and a work ethic that borders on insanity.

They started with not much more than a sewing machine and an idea and, far from global fashion centers, they set out to turn their dreams into beautiful things to use and wear. And lo and behold, these Minnesotans made it happen. Laura Nelli's chic handbags, Rapport's leather bags and whimsical accessories, and Gillian Gabriel's beautiful, flattering-to-any-form swimsuits are made-in-Minnesota fashion phenomena that are making their mark in the wider world.

What can we do to do leverage the abundant high-tech talent in Minnesota into more startups? At the MinneBar 2010 conference, geeks and investors gathered to grapple with that question--among others--and to assess the state of the tech biz in the Gopher State. The verdict: More risk-taking, more mentoring, more connectivity are needed here--but everybody can keep their cabins.

 What's the special sauce that makes so many bright people who come here stay here--and a lot people who go away, come back? (And what do we need to make that sauce even richer?) Some local creative types weigh in.