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City considers street closures for Twins home games
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UPDATED March 4, 2010, 5:24pm
By Gregory J. Scott
The latest Target Field-induced transit adjustment may involve the closing of three nearby city blocks to traffic.
Under a plan being considered by the city, cars would be denied access to a two-block portion of 1st Avenue North between 4th and 6th street, for one hour before and one after every Minnesota Twins home game. In addition, the 6th Street exit from Interstate 394 would be blockaded for one hour after every home game, and 6th Street itself would shut down between 1st and 2nd avenues, also for one hour after each game. Both thoroughfares would be open during games.
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City considers street closures for Twins home games
UPDATED March 4, 2010, 5:24pm
By Gregory J. Scott
2 Comments
The latest Target Field-induced transit adjustment may involve the closing of three nearby city blocks to traffic.
Under a plan being considered by the city, cars would be denied access to a two-block portion of 1st Avenue North between 4th and 6th street, for one hour before and one after every Minnesota Twins home game. In addition, the 6th Street exit from Interstate 394 would be blockaded for one hour after every home game, and 6th Street itself would shut down between 1st and 2nd avenues, also for one hour after each game. Both thoroughfares would be open during games.
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Hubert's to replace NBA City
UPDATED March 3, 2010, 10:20am
By Gregory J. Scott
One of the most popular bars from the Minnesota Twins' Metrodome days is following its team to the west end of Downtown. According to a statement released this morning by co-owners Steve Anderly and Bob Jones, Hubert’s Café and Sports Bar is opening a new location in the space currently occupied by NBA City at Target Center. The new Hubert’s will open on April 2, just in time for the Twins’ first exhibition game in the adjacent Target Field. The original Hubert’s, located at Chicago Avenue and 6th Street, has been a favorite pre- and post-game destination for many sports fans since it opened near the Metrodome in 1983. It will remain open, with no planned changes to its menu or bar.
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Si se puede!
UPDATED March 1, 2010, 1:46pm
By Gregory J. Scott
// Hours before a scheduled strike, Downtown janitors celebrate a new employment contract // After nearly two months of heated negotiations and threats to walk off the job, Downtown janitors may have a new employment contract as early as this Saturday. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26 — which represents over 4,000 Downtown janitors, as well as security officers and window cleaners — announced this morning that a tentative contract agreement with the Minneapolis–Saint Paul Contract Cleaners Association had been reached early Sunday. The announcement came just days after janitors had made concrete plans for a strike, which was to begin at 4 p.m. today. Congressman Keith Ellison and several
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Visions for Downtown
By Sarah McKenzie
Collin Barr, president of the Minnesota Region for Ryan Companies US, Inc., a major commercial real estate firm headquartered Downtown, recently met with the Journal to talk about his work and thoughts on the city. Barr has been with Ryan Companies for more than a decade, overseeing many major development projects in the city’s core. He also serves on the board of the Downtown Council. Here are highlights of the interview. DTJ: What is the outlook for the year for Ryan?Barr: We’re more optimistic than 2009, clearly, for us. We see our revenues and profits increasing, which of course we’re excited about. It’s still an extremely challenging economic environment, and the construction/development
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Development update :: 'Bright Spaces'
By Gregory J. Scott
Simpson Housing Services unveils 'Bright Spaces' A Minneapolis housing nonprofit has just finished renovations on four brand new environments that integrate novel design, early education expertise and homelessness advocacy.
Simpson Housing Services is the latest local beneficiary of Bright Spaces, an international program that creates developmentally appropriate calm zones that help children in formerly homeless families keep pace with their peers. Each space is carefully designed by early education professionals and tailored to the specific population it serves. Equipped with bursting bookshelves, backpacks stuffed with educational games, dress-up clothing closets, tents and toy kitchens, the Bright Spaces are imagination-stoking workshops that
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Northeast spotlight :: Savoring cider
By Lana Walker
The entrepreneurial mantra of Joe Heron, president and founder of Crispin Cider Company, can be summed up with this: forward motion and innovative change, with a little humor and fun thrown in there too. Crispin Cider Company is a producer of super-premium natural hard apple ciders, headquartered on the corner of 4th Street and Central Avenue. Launched in November 2008 by Heron, along with his wife and business partner Lesley, the cider company has done nothing but push the envelope in the market of hard cider in an attempt to refresh the beverage’s image in the eyes of American consumers. “In my generation, cider was like the Smirnoff Ice today,” explained Heron, who hails from South Africa. “If you didn’t like alcohol much, you drank
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Community notebook :: Bike-sharing
By Gregory J. Scott
Minneapolis looks to avoid other cities’ bike-sharing mistakesSure, the bikes are on their way. But what about the broken locks, the busted kiosks and the bankrupting expense of theft and repair? Are we getting those, too? The recent announcement that Minneapolis would adopt Montreal’s BIXI system for the city’s bike-sharing program triggered a wave of enthusiasm. Not only were we getting a taste of European-style transit here in the Twin Cities, but we had hired the best in the bike-sharing business to bring it here. The BIXI system — with its beefed-up bikes and its computer-chip based, solar-powered, WiFi-enabled parking stations — was named one of the top inventions of 2008 by Time magazine.
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Biz buzz :: FinnStyle
By Gregory J. Scott
FinnStyle unveils new Glenwood Avenue location
The Finnish design boutique officially opened its new location on Glenwood Avenue on Feb. 19, a spacious, white-tiled showroom that effectively doubles the size of the former location in Gaviidae Common.
The retailer left the skyways last month in the hopes of consolidating its merchandise under one roof. Previously, FinnStyle, which does a considerable amount of business through its website, finnstyle.com, had kept the bulk of its inventory in a Golden Valley warehouse, which led to inefficiencies in stocking, said store manager Elina Ruppert.
The new space at 160 Glenwood Ave., with its high ceilings and track lighting, provides an art gallery environment for the store’s
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Southern centennial
By Gregory J. Scott
// The Southern Theater celebrates its 100th birthday //Although the college kids swarming the bars at Seven Corners might not realize it, hoards of young Swedish men and women were doing the same thing, at the same spots, one hundred years earlier. Not sucking down fishbowls at Preston’s Urban Pub, per se. But preening and profiling, flirting and fighting, and of course, drinking — lots and lots of drinking. At the turn of the 20th century, Minneapolis was the most densely Swedish city in the United States, and the Cedar Riverside area was where the Swedes came to party. From about 1880 to 1916, a carnival of social clubs, saloons and pool halls electrified the intersection of Cedar and Washington avenues. According to Nina Clark,
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Trekking with purpose
By Sarah McKenzie
// Smile Network unveils Global Ventures program for mission-driven travelers //Smile Network, a North Loop-based nonprofit, has launched a new international travel program matching adventure treks with charitable work. The Global Ventures initiative features five- to 10-day adventure travel experiences in Peru, Africa, India and Ecuador this year. The participants help raise money for the Smile Network, an organization that provides reconstructive surgeries for children and young adults born with cleft lips or palates. The treks provide the organization with another important revenue stream, said Kim Valentini, founder of the Smile Network. “Every adventure travel experience butts up against a surgical
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Civic beat :: Local-government aid cut
By Cristof Traudes
Governor’s idea: $29 million less for MinneapolisAnother bad economic year for the state, another cut to local-government aid. Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Feb. 15 unveiled his proposal for filling in a $1.2 billion gap in the state’s budget, tightening spending on health care and higher education. In his announcement, Pawlenty put extra emphasis on a number of tax cuts that he said would benefit small businesses and corporations and thus stimulate statewide job growth. For Minneapolis, more pressing was the governor’s suggestion that another $250 million be trimmed from aid to cities and counties, a move that would translate to a $29 million hit for the city. About $3.4 million of that would be cut from the Minneapolis Park
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City council actions :: Dolan hearing set
By Cristof Traudes
Hearing on Dolan set for March 3A public hearing has been scheduled for March 3 to discuss the reappointment of Tim Dolan as the city’s chief of police. Under Dolan, first chosen to lead the Minneapolis Police Department in 2006, there has been a marked drop in the city’s crime rates while several initiatives he’s championed — primarily, the city’s movement toward youth violence prevention — have taken on a high profile. But the chief also has been criticized for his response to accusations of police officers’ infractions, highlighted by a December evaluation from a citizen board that called his responsiveness to police misconduct insufficient. Mayor R.T. Rybak, who suggested the
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2010 Reader's Raves Winners
By Journal staff
Congratulations to the recipients of our fourth annual Reader Raves contest. We asked readers to vote for their favorite spots to eat, shop, hang out and catch live entertainment in the Downtown area. Thanks to those who voted in the contest. Repeat winners are marked with an asterisk.
DESTINATIONS
Skyway
IDS to Macy’s*
While it’s probably the widest corridor traversing the heart of Nicollet Mall and its floor-to-ceiling windows provide an unimpeded view of Downtown, this section of skyway finds most of its appeal in its connection points. Opening up into the atrium in IDS Center, the corridor funnels you into a homey space of restaurants, shopping and urban bustle. On the other end is
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Picks :: Its dancey dance time
By Gregory J. Scott
Parents planning to take their kids to see Yo Gabba Gabba! Live! take note: your toddlers may have to elbow a few 20-something hipsters out of their seats. Yo Gabba Gabba! — the groundbreaking Nickelodeon children’s show that dresses pre-school pedagogy in indie culture cred — has always been a hit with the snot-nosed set. But cool kids of an older generation have fallen in love with it to, too, thanks to its sophisticated synthpop jingles, its wit-heavy graphic design and its ceaseless parade of underground celebrity cameos. Lessons in saying “please” and “thank you” and the importance of sharing with others are regularly supplemented with beat-boxing tutorials (courtesy of ’90s rap icon Biz Markie) and intros to
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Food & drink :: Let them eat cake
By Lana Walker
If you’re like me and have been sucked into the baking shows that frequent evening television, you spend a lot of time wishing you could sample the delicate sweets and exquisite, towering cakes that are turned out. Do they taste as good as they look? Wonder no more and try for yourself. Cocoa & Fig, a Shakopee-based catering company specializing in baked goods, specialty desserts and cakes, has launched its first retail effort on the second-story skyway level of Gaviidae Common. For nearly three years, the company’s catering business — most often in elaborate desserts — has boomed for both corporate and social occasions, and its baked goods and sweets have been selling out at farmers’ markets in Prior Lake, White Bear Lake and Nicollet Mall.
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Check it out :: Minnesota FoodShare
By Sarah McKenzie
Minnesota FoodShare’s March Campaign
The Twin Cities natural food co-ops have joined FoodShare’s March Campaign, pledging to raise 85,000 in combined dollars and found pounds. Minnesota FoodShare is a Minneapolis-based nonprofit committed to fighting hunger across the state. Each March it organizes the largest Minnesota food drive to help restock 260 food shelves around the state. The 11 Twin Cities natural food co-ops are working to encourage people to contribute healthful food items for the March drive. “Twin Cities co-ops are leaders in natural and organic foods, and in community enrichment,” said Kelly Smith of the National Cooperative Grocers Association in a statement about the food drive.
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Time to tackle cigarette butt litter problem
By Tom Hoch
I’m an optimist in thinking spring isn’t too far away — the angle of the sun has changed, the days have grown longer and temperatures are mostly on the rise. For retailers, prices on winter clothing have been slashed and the spring line of clothing is edging onto store racks. I can’t wait to store all things down-filled!
As the snow recedes, I’m also anxious to rediscover our sidewalks and boulevards, savor the green grass and shimmering water, explore hiking trails, helm sailboats and relax on café terraces and at outdoor events. Our incredibly beautiful environment is integral to our quality of life and is, without a doubt, one of Minneapolis’ most impressive features, feeding our national reputation as a great place to live,
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