Kiger's Notebook

Rochester among top brainiest U.S. cities

Rochester appearing on a top 20 list is no surprise and being on a list of top brainiest cities is certainly something that could be expected.

The Med City was ranked at 18th on this Top 20 Brainiest U.S. Cities list.

An interesting twist on this list is that it is compiled by Richard Florida, the same think tanker, economist and urban theorist that placed Rochester at the top of the list of cities where new jobs will develop in coming in years.

--------------------------

"Brainy metros tend to have higher incomes, wages, and economic output, higher levels of innovation (measured as patents), more high-tech industry, and higher housing prices, according to an analysis by my research team at the Martin Prosperity Institute.

They have also been among the most resilient during the current economic downturn.

Though luring new factories and building new stadiums lend themselves to outsize media attention and ostentatious ribbon-cutting ceremonies, the less glamorous work of building up local knowledge assets and leveraging existing university campuses yields far greater and lasting economic gains.

Unlike incentive packages and new stadiums, which, despite their price tags of hundreds of millions of dollars, too often turn out to provide benefits that are scant or fleeting, knowledge assets like research universities can’t move; they are rooted in the local economy.

These brainy metros not only demonstrate a better approach to stimulating state and local economic development, they are helping to rebuild the U.S. economy as a whole.

The Brainiest Metros Index is based on three variables: (1) the share of adults 25 years of age and older with a Ph.D., master's or professional degree, (2) computer scientists and mathematicians as a share of all employment, and (3) scientists (physical, biological, social) as a share of total metro employment."

1 Boulder, CO

2 Durham, NC

3 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV

4 Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA

5 Trenton-Ewing, NJ

6 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA

7 Ithaca, NY

8 San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, CA

9 Charlottesville, VA

10 Madison, WI

11 Raleigh-Cary, NC

12 Olympia, WA

13 Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY

14 Fort Collins-Loveland, CO

15 Ames, IA

16 Austin-Round Rock, TX

17 Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA

18 Rochester, MN

19 Corvallis, OR

20 Iowa City, IA

Zombies on parade

In case you missed it over the weekend, here's some from what I wrote up about Rochester's first zombie walk Saturday plus a pic by Scott Jacobson.

If you want to see some video Scott shot of the faux dead event, some is posted here.

It was the sunny afternoon of the … uh … dead today in Rochester.

A mob of almost 100 zombie fans covered in fake blood gathered in the downtown Peace Plaza for Rochester's first-ever Zombie Walk.

 "Awesome," is what young Sam Hanson declared the event as he followed the shuffling zombies down Broadway. While he didn't dress up for it, Hanson did enjoy watching the sort of undead parade.

Sam's parents, Cory and Kimberly, brought Sam and his sister out to see the spectacle, because "he is a huge monster movie fan."

Not every spectator was as excited about the theatrical group.

A couple eating dinner in front of Mac's Diner said they were "appalled" by the display and that the zombies "should get real and have more purpose to their lives."

However, by far, the majority of people on downtown's sidewalks and streets seemed entertained by the invasion of the legendary brain-eating monsters. Spectators took photos, honked horns, laughed and shouted their support.

Many people said it was refreshing to see Rochester embrace something different.

"I didn't get to run around town like a zombie," said 30-year-old Jane Remfert, who was visiting her parents, Elizabeth and Jeff Remfert. "I would have loved to have done that growing up here."

The Remferts sat on a bench watching the zombies gathering in the Peace Plaza. Looking for something to do to entertain their daughter, the Remferts decided zombie watching might be fun.

Another set of parents, Connor and Erin Letts, were also pleased that a zombie walk had made it to their hometown.

Two of their kids, 4-year-old Hank and 5 1/2-year-old Rosie, were very familiar with the zombie scene as they ran around in the green grass sporting makeup and fake blood.

Connor, whose band Zed on Arrival will perform later, said the kids had been to many zombie gatherings throughout the region with their parents.

"It is its own subculture," he said.

The Letts thought it was great that instead of driving to the Twin Cities or South Dakota, zombies had arrived in Rochester.

"I think it was overdue," said Connor.

While pretend undead started to limp toward the parking lot of Top Cat Tattoo on Broadway, another member of the Letts family — 10-day-old baby Nora — slept through her first zombie walk.

Connor said she'll get other chances to check out the zombie scene, hopefully in Rochester.

"She'll be going to a lot more of these," Nora's dad said with a bloody smile.

Big question: When will trader Joe's open?

What's the question I get most often these days?

"When is Rochester's new Trader Joe's grocery store going to open?"

Usually the person asking has a dreamy, euphoric look in their eyes usually reserved for spiritual people talking about a religious experience or maybe hamburgers from Newt's, Five Guys or White Castle.

The answer is that plans are still a go to open the doors yet this year in the former Cost Plus-World Market building at 1200 16th St. S.W.

Alison Mochizuki, Trader Joe's director of public relations, says the time line announced in May is still on track.

"We are still scheduled to open this year," says Mochizuki, who recognizes my voice on the phone after so many years of  fielding my calls asking about Joe's coming to the Med City.

So if everything goes as planned, Rochester shoppers should be able to buy Thai lime-and-chili cashews and whatever else they want from Hawaiian shirt-clad "crew members" before the changes to 2011.

For everyone hoping to join the Joe's brigade as a crew member, here's an interesting chunk from a very interesting article called "Inside the Secret World of Trader Joe's" by Beth Kowitt that came out in Fortune magazine and CNN last week:

You can't buy engagement from employees, but the pay at Trader Joe's helps.

Store managers, "captains" in Trader Joe's parlance -- the nautical titles are a holdover from Coulombe (newly promoted captains are commanders; assistant store managers are first mates) -- can make in the low six figures, and full-time crew members can start in the $40,000 to $60,000 range.

But on top of the pay, Trader Joe's annually contributes 15.4% of employees' gross income to tax-deferred retirement accounts.

Research grant to bring $12M stimulus money into Roch.

Here's some from a piece I have in today's paper. The full article is in the print edition:

A new five-year study into human immune system responses to vaccines is expected to bring more than $12 million in stimulus money to Rochester.

Mayo Clinic is one of six medical centers that were will share  a $100 million research grant. Mayo's Dr. Greg Poland will lead the work at the six sites.

"We know grossly how it (a vaccine) works, but nobody can explain to you very well what is actually happening at the genetic and molecular level," Poland says. "What we're essentially doing is reverse engineering the immune system."

Using technology that wasn’t available even a year or two ago, the plan is to study patient reactions to vaccines for influenza, pneumococcus and the West Nile virus.

Flu patients between the ages of 50 to 75 years old will be studied. That group is particularly vulnerable to the flu, which kills 40,000 people in the U.S. a year, according to Poland.

This vaccine research will not just benefit the scientific world, but it should also give local businesses a shot in the arm.

“At the local level, it will bring in excess of about $12 million into the Rochester economy,” Poland said. “We will be hiring people and those people will live and work here, buy cars, newspapers, food …”

Saga of the Lobster on the Grill with Mayo

What happened to the plan to move Red Lobster from its longtime home at South Broadway and Second Street to the long-empty Romano’s Macaroni Grill on the west side of Apache Mall?

 I reported last June that Tom Mickelson, the general manager of Rochester’s Red Lobster, told me that his restaurant would migrate south by May.

It's now August and no move is even in the works. So what's the deal?

Mickelson says the move probably will still happen, but things have changed since we last chatted.

Previously, the Lobster's landlord — a little outfit called Mayo Clinic — had been anxious to open up the corner downtown spot for other uses. Red Lobster was told it would be let out of its lease early, if it could find a new home.

So the purveyor of  shellfish worked on lining up the old Mac Grill spot that has been empty since that restaurant closed in March 2008.

Today, Red Lobster is still working on a deal to get released from the 15 months left on its lease.

"We're still negotiating to get out of here early," Mickelson says. "We basically have a hold of the Macaroni Grill building."

How much work is needed to prep the restaurant by the Apache Mall?

"There is some work needed, but it's nothing that we probably couldn't accomplish in 60 days," Mickelson said.

Big Brad's open and serving

Rochester's pub crawl circuit started serving Monday night, when Big Brad's on Broadway launched with a 'soft opening' Monday night.

Filling 2,800-square-feet of the 108-year-old former Paine Furniture building, Big Brad's has 20 beers on tap and serves Bilotti's Pizza.

"Things are going great. We're really pleased with the early response," says Eric Petersen, one of the three owners of the new watering hole.

Look for the owners - Petersen, Brad Borowski and Dave Loomis to be slinging drinks from behind the bar.

For the lager-minded out there, look for the bar to serve 30 to 35  brews in bottles in addition to what it has on tap. Among its libations on tap, it is offering Rogue Chocolate Stout.

Open from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m., Big Brad's has about 10 on staff.

It fills a spot on South Broadway between Kathy's Pub and Club Amsterdam.

Rochester inventors = 44 patents in August

Here's a random tidbit.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark office issues patents every Tuesday.

I've previously reported that Rochester, Minn. leads the state and often the country as the city with the most patents issued to resident inventors per 1,000 people.

Looking at the three Tuesdays in August 2010, Rochester inventors show up on 44 patents. That is out of a total of 20,393 patent issued during that time.

Most originate from IBM, but Mayo Clinic has a few as do independent inventors.

Will Roch. be top job hotspot in next decade?

I have an article in today's paper about a think tank report that forecasts Rochester as the potential leader in new job creation through 2018.

For this piece, I also interviewed Glenn S. Dorfman of St. Paul-based Common Sense Solutions for reaction.

I didn't have room to include his comments in print, but the former chief lobbyist and chief executive for the Minnesota Association of Realtors as well as a former board member of Citizen’s League and the Minnesota Taxpayer’s Association was not surprised by the report.

"About five to 10 years ago when I was working for the Association of Realtors, I was talking about this...," he told me. Many signs points to more and more growth along the 90 mile corridor between Rochester and the Twin Cities.

"The economy is moving in the direction of Rochester," he says. "But will it happen automatically? No."

He has many ideas about how to fully take advantage of this, which I might re-visit in future economic development articles.

Here's some from today's print piece on this jobs report. The full piece is posted here. The pic of Florida below is from the Ottawa Citizen newspaper in Ottawa, Canada.

The United States needs new jobs for the economy to truly recover, but where those jobs be found?

In Rochester, according to one economist and urban theorist.

Richard Florida, author of the book "The Rise of the Creative Class" and the director of the Martin Prosperity Institute think tank, projects that Rochester will gain 12,693 jobs from 2008 to 2018, for a nation-leading growth rate of 12.26 percent.

"Rochester is known for being home to the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, which employs 30,000 people. The second-largest employer in the city is IBM, employing more than 4,000 people," he wrote.

"With the pace of growth in the health and technology sectors not likely to slow any time soon, it’s obvious why Rochester tops our list."

A Minnesota labor expert, however, cautions taking the forecast with a grain of salt.

Kyle Uphoff, assistant director of labor information for Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, agrees that Rochester is well positioned to take advantage of employment trends, but he cautions about leaning too heavily on national numbers that aren’t supported by local knowledge.

“A lot of things are going happen over next 10 years,” he says. “A lot of technologies will be developed, a lot of new facilities will open and a lot will close.”

318 Commons moving on up in downtown Roch.

 G.H. Holding's 318 Commons  - a nine-story apartment complex with classrooms, retail, offices and public space for University of Minnesota Rochester students - continues to slowly grow brick-by-brick in downtown Rochester.

Expected to cost almost $28 million to build, the complex is across First Avenue from the Minnesota BioBusiness Center and Dooley's Pub. 

It will contain 98 apartments, ranging in size from three-bedroom units to efficiencies, as well as space for classrooms, offices, and a student life area.

The university is leasing 70 apartments -- 148 beds -- for $1.4 million a year to house students as its Rochester campus grows.

G.H. is working to get the place built and ready for use by fall 2011.

The complex will also include some retail and restaurant space.Long-empty buildings that last housed the Affiliated Group and the Ultra Lounge bar were scraped off of First Avenue  the 2011 school year starts.

New name checks in at Roch. hotel

Here's one that slid right past me. I definitely need to get out to the south side of Rochester more often.

The hotel developed and owned by Andy Chafoulias by the Rochester International Airport dropped the Sleep Inn name on Aug. 1.

So I asked General Manager Angela Pike what is the new name of the 72 room hotel?

The Airport Event Center Hotel.

Oh. Uhmm... OK.

Why the change?

"The owner decided to change name," she said.

Oh.