Kiger's Notebook

Action gearing up on S.W. 2nd Street?

Recently, I wrote about the demolition of the former Rochester Area Foundation building, which is slated to start this week. It is being cleared to make way for the construction of a new SEMCIL facility.

Now I'm hearing about more business action gearing up in that part of Rochester's Second Street S.W. This one might get rolling yet this week, if things go as planned.

Overall, it sounds like the Med City's recently dubbed "Uptown" area is moving up in the world.

Kappers' farm squeaking out fresh cheese curds

Here's some from my column in the weekend edition about an area dairy farm adding cheese curds to fresh milk products it already offers.

The rest of this cheesey tidbit is posted here.

If you listen closely, you might hear some faint squeaks coming from the direction of Chatfield and the Kappers' Big Red Barn dairy farm.

And its not coming from mice as one young visitor thought.

After years of bottling and selling fresh milk in glass bottles, Bob and Jeanette Kappers have added fresh cheese curds to their offerings.

"It has always been on our mind to do it, but it has taken awhile to get it right," says Jeanette Kappers. "It is more an art than a science."

Judging by the reactions of people gathered to donate blood at the Chatfield United Methodist Church last week, it sounds like they have figured out the knack of turning milk from their more than 35 cows into curds that squeak when you bite into them. A friend of the Kappers bought a batch of curds and gave an ounce to each donor to try.

"Everyone kept asking how they could get more of those curds," says Kappers.

Right now the only place to do that is at the Kappers’ Big Red Barn store on their farm on Fillmore County Road 5, less than a mile from Chatfield.

Instant cookie gratification

Here's some from an article I have in print today about Girl Scout cookies and their new sales program this year. The cool pic is by the PB's Elizabeth Nida Obert.

She also did the nifty video that you can find here.

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Armed with about 5 million boxes of Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos and more, the Girl Scouts will launch their local campaign this week. It will run from Saturday through March 20.

While Girl Scouts will come knocking as in years past, this year's buyers won't have to wait to start crunching on their cookies of choice. Instead of carrying order forms, the Scouts will have cookies in hand. When the customer pays, they will receive their order immediately.

Zanna Blouin, 9, a veteran cookie-seller who moved more than 1,000 boxes last year, thinks this new approach will result in more sales for all of the Scouts.

"It will probably be easier to sell them if people see the cookies right in front of them," she said as her mother helped fill one of two vans cookies for a young Daisy Scout troop on Saturday morning.

They came back later with a trailer to collect the cookies for the more experienced sellers in Zanna's troop.

Barbara Boelk, the marketing and communications manager for the 49 counties covered by the Rochester-based Girl Scouts of Minnesota and Wisconsin River Valleys, thinks the new sales model will make history for the group.

"We are going to be selling 5 million packages of cookies this year," she said. "That makes us — just here in Southeast Minnesota — the largest cookie program … in the world."

Demolition crews to hit S.W. Roch. next week

Second Street Southwest will soon have one less building, though a Rochester nonprofit will soon replace it.

Demolition of the former Rochester Area Foundation building at 2200 Second St. S.W. is slated to start next week.

Once it is scraped off the site, the Southeastern Minnesota Center for Independent Living, Inc.  or SEMCIL will kick off construction of a more than 12,000-square-foot center.

Vicki Dalle Molle, SEMCIL executive director, says the one-level facility designed to be "accessible, welcoming and more efficient" for its clients in its 11-county service area.

The Urban Studio, owned by Rochester architect Teresa McCormack, created the design for SEMCIL's new digs.

This project has been percolating for a while.

SEMCIL bought the building last January from Mayo Clinic for $695,000.

It has been empty since October when the Rochester Area Foundation moved to the top of the Riverside Building in downtown Rochester.

New Roch. Subaru showroom cruising along

In the fall, Clements Chevrolet Cadillac Subaru at the "gateway to the Apache Mall" broke ground (asphalt actually) for a new, separate Subaru showroom.

Today I cruised by the long-time Rochester car dealership and it looks like the project is making good headway.

Clements is owned by Jack Remick and his family along with partner and longtime Clements general manager Jim Orke.

They officially acquired it from Jerry Bridwell and F.B. Clements & Co. in April 2009.

Mayo Clinic linked NeoChord = $1M in funding

Remember NeoChord, Inc.?

 It's a medical device company that licenses Mayo Clinic technology to make a non-invasive method for fixing a leaky heart valve AKA mitral-valve regurgitation. Mayo Clinic is also invested in an equity position in the firm.

Anyway, Katharine Grayson of the Twin City Business Journal picked up last week that it recently raised $1 million in venture capital funding to support its continues clinical trials in Europe.

CEO John Seaberg told Grayson that Neochord also is in “deep discussions” to raise $10 million more in funding that could be locked in sometime in the next several months.

NeoChord began clinical trials on patients in Germany, Denmark, Czech Republic and Norway in October of 2009. It is now about one-third of the way through the trial.

This is all based on research by Mayo Clinic's Dr. Richard Daly and Dr. Giovanni Speziali that allows doctors to repair mitral-valve regurgitation without stopping a beating heart or cracking the chest open.

Action @ First N.W. and Civic Center

The historic 300 First building in Rochester's downtown has three tenants moving into the space left open when the Law Office of Klampe, Delehanty & Morris moved to the Olmsted National Bank building.

Meanwhile, a brand new local business is moving in next door in the little building on the corner that last housed Culinary Market, the ancestor of today's ZZest.

I have all of the details in my print column today.

$3.5 billion deal links to Roch.

Don't know if this qualifies as thinking outside of the box, but cardboard box maker RockTenn Co. announced Sunday that it is buying Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. for a whopping $3.5 billion dollars.

Smurfit-Stone has a coorugated cardboard facility in Rochester on U.S. 14 West. Now this giant deal is new enough no one knows what it might mean for individual sites like Rochester.

It also has centers in St. Paul, Minneapolis, St. Cloud.

If this unfolds as the execs want it to, the RockTenn will emerge as the second largest u.s.maker of both containerboard and coated recycle board.

I think the frozen pizza I had the other night uses coated recycle board for its crust. Heh.

 

 

 

 

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IBM gives $1,000 bonuses for good 2010

 Spotted a couple articles today on InformationWeek and Bloomberg today about IBM giving non-execs $1,000 stock bonuses last year's performance.

A memo from the Big Blue Boss Sam Palmisano is reported as stating all non-executive employees who performed consistently during the execution of the company’s 2010 strategic plan will get the bonus.

I wonder how many of the IBMers in Rochester will get this bonus?

IBM, which doesn't release any specific employee numbers any more, is not saying how many of its about 400,000 staffers will get this.

The shares will vest in 2015.

$1.5M upgrade underway downtown @ Broadway Residences

Noite - The pic of Broadway Residence & Suites was taken by Rochester photographer Chad Johnson. Thanks for letting me use it, Chad.

Owners of Rochester's tallest building are spending more than $1.5 million to upgrade its top floors to a new level of luxury apartments.

Broadway Residence & Suites by BridgeStreet at 15 First Ave. S.E. started construction earlier this month to renovate 17 apartments on its 23rd, 24th and 25th floors.

Those floors, combined with two $5,500-a-night penthouse apartments on the top floor, will be called "The Residences." Work is expected to be complete in April.

John Beltz, Broadway Residence & Suites' general manager, says the new apartments will meet a growing demand for a level of accommodations between its current highest-end apartment, going for $300 a night, and its penthouse suites.

“What we’re doing is offering a contemporary yet comfortable space to those looking for a five-star hotel alternative while visiting our city," he said.

Once the renovations are complete, The Residences will be two- and three-bedroom apartments, each with a full kitchen, living room and dining room.

Beltz says the fixtures and furniture will reflect the feeling of the current penthouses.

A new concierge lounge also is being added to serve the guests of The Residences.

The price range for these 17 apartments will be $600 to $900 a night.
This announcement follows two very successful years for the tower.

"2010 was the best year we've ever had," said Beltz.