Kiger's Notebook

A clinic in Rochester a dream come true for dentist

Had this one last week. Just learned that Rochester's CRW Architecture + Design Group is handling this project.

The plan for the facility includes space for 4 treatment rooms, 2 hygiene rooms, an x-ray area and related staff and support areas, according to CRW's Facebook page. CRW also says that this project is on a fast track schedule intended to be open for business by January 2013.

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Dr. Karen Buttar is all smiles as she talks about her new dental clinic being built in the Med City's fastest growing commercial area.

"I've always dreamed of this. It was time to step up," she says. "Here, I'll be able to do all I ever dreamed of."

The almost 3,000-square-foot Dental Care Clinic is under construction along 19th Street Northwest next to the Highlands Business Park. Buttar hopes it will be completed in December, so she can open before the start of 2013.

The clinic is directly across the road from the new facility being built for Paws & Claws next to the Rochester Athletic Club. The dental clinic is going up on the spot originally pegged for Paws & Claws before it migrated across 19th Street.

Buttar, who has practiced dentistry in Rochester for years, most recently leased space in the Minnesota Lakes Dental Clinic in the Shoppes on Maine development.

Her plan is to offer a full range of general dentistry services with some extra emphasis on cosmetic services and care for children.

"I love to treat kids," she says.

Having her own clinic will give Buttar the flexibility to take extra time with each patient.

"There will be no rushing. I like to have a relationship with each patient," she says.

In addition to having more control over her time, the new clinic will allow Buttar to take advantage of the latest technology. For example, she is outfitting it with an X-ray imaging machine that uses 90 percent less radiation than traditional ones.

Why did she decide to build along 19th Street Northwest?

The new CostCo store, Kwik Trip station and Lourdes High School all being built nearby signal the explosive growth in that part of Rochester, Buttar points out. She also likes being near the Rochester Athletic Club.

"And it is much more centrally located than I have been in the past," she says.

Buttar expects to have three or four people on staff when she opens up the clinic.

In the end, she said the whole project is about the patients. She remembers how overwhelmed with emotion one woman was after Buttar closed up the spacing between her teeth with less than two hours of treatment.

"At the end of the day, you feel like you did something worthwhile," she says. "I love it."

Mayo, Roch. and RAEDI join forces to speed biz growth

Here's some from my story about a new project at the Minnesota BioBusiness Building:

To help launch fledgling companies, Mayo Clinic, the city of Rochester and Rochester Area Economic Development Inc. are creating a new "accelerator center."

The Rochester City Council gave the green light Monday night to move ahead with a proposal to create 2,500 square feet of office space on the second floor of the Minnesota Biobusiness Center in downtown Rochester.

Mayo Clinic is giving $100,000 to turn the unused space, which is owned by the city, into offices. RAEDI will handle the management and leasing of the space.

"It is a great collaboration," says Jim Rogers, chair of the Mayo Clinic Ventures, which manages the clinic's intellectual property and patents. "It is something we are very excited about."

Mayo Clinic leases the top five floors of the eight-story building for a variety of offices, including Mayo Clinic Ventures. That leaves the bottom three levels for outside tenants. When it opened in 2009, the goal was to attract biotechnology and medical device firms that would benefit by being near Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota Rochester.

The downswing of the recession stalled the growth of that type of biobusiness, so the city began reaching out to other types of tenants, such as Think Mutual Savings Bank, College of St. Scholastica and Hirman Insurers.

This new approach is aimed at sparking more action in the biotech sector by the focusing on early stage start-ups that just need "a place to hang their hats," says Doug Knott, the city's development director.

About 86 percent of the building is now under lease, he says. The accelerator will bring that percentage close to 90 percent.

"Using a relatively small space for this could potentially bring a big pay-off," says Knott.

Plans for the accelerator center are still being finalized, but it is expected it will include about six offices plus a conference room and other public areas. HGA, which was the architect firm for the building, is working on designs for this space. Rents are expected to range from $13 to $15 per square foot.

"The intent is to accelerate the growth of these businesses," says Knott. "And then move them to other parts of the building or elsewhere in the center, when they outgrow it."

The ultimate goal is to take advantage of the influence of Mayo Clinic's efforts to spin off related businesses and generate more local jobs.

"We hope to have it ready to open by the first of the year," says Gary Smith, RAEDI president.

Downtown Roch. building sells for $5.3M

A prominent downtown Rochester building was sold for $5.3 million last week.

The 130-year-old former Odd Fellows building at 23 Second St. S.W. was purchased by Baheya LLC of Rochester, according to the Olmsted County Property Records.

Oxford Property Management, a Rochester firm, is listed on county records as the manager of the building.

It was sold by 23 Second Street SW LLC, a Rochester property investment company.

The storefront space at the corner of Second Street and First Avenue Southwest is empty.

Think Mutual Bank moved out in July. Think shifted its downtown branch two blocks south to the Minnesota Biobusiness Center at 221 First Ave. S.W.

There's no word yet if Baheya has any tenant slated to move into the space or if the ownership switch will mean any changes for the other tenants like Eagle Drug, Newt's Express and HDR Architecture.

Think Bank owned the building until selling it to 23 Second Street SW LLC for  $2.8 million in 2007. Think bought it from the Rochester Odd Fellows Lodge for $700,000 in 1998.

Downtown Roch. building is now pretty in pink

A small, downtown Rochester building with a long, colorful history is now pretty in pink.

Standing at 20 Sixth Street S.W., near the VFW Post 1215 Club, the minuscule cube of a building has been a pizza place, a jewelry store, a dog-grooming business and even an ice cream shop with a big frosty cone on top.

And now, for its latest incarnation, it is swathed in a coat of cotton candy pink.

Lisa Hendrickson recently moved the Rochester office of her Call That Girl computer repair and support business into the spot across First Avenue from the ruins of the ex-KTTC building.

The pink, along with the black trim, matches the colors of the Call That Girl logo.

Her information technology operation offers software fixes and maintenance via remote access — such as virus removal — as well as nuts and bolts on-site hardware repair.

And she now goes beyond desktops and laptops to offer specialty tech repairs for things like iPods, gaming systems and plasma TVs. Call That Girl can also work on household appliances like microwave ovens, washers, dryers, trash compactors and vacuum cleaners.

Hendrickson, who founded Call That Girl in Rochester, has other locations in the Twin Cities and Winona.

She re-opened the Rochester location last fall after she had moved it completely to the Twin Cities for three years.

It was last on North Broadway before its recent move to its pink home downtown.

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.

Red Wing co. lands $100,000 federal contract

Here's an interesting piece of flotsam that just floated by me this morning.

Neufeldt Industrial Services Inc. of Red Wing recently won a $109,972 federal contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in St. Paul for a stop log fabrication and installation at Grand Forks.

I'll have to check on how this contract might impact this company.

More on this later.

Enviro-friendly building designer heats things up

Here's some from an article I have on Christian Milaster and his Be!Cause Group. The full piece is posted here.

The puzzle of building an environmentally friendly home that is economically reasonable and still comfortable is a challenge.

"We looked around quite a bit," says Shalise Keating. "We're concerned about the environment and we want to do our piece."

In the end, Keating and her partner, Jill Kelly, turned to local engineer Christian Milaster and his Be!Cause Group to create a plan for their Fillmore County home.

"I think he does a better job of putting all of the pieces of together than anyone else we've found," Keating says as their 4,200-square-foot, three-story house is being built in Fillmore County.

It will be heated by the sun, and all of its water will be provided from a 20,000-gallon cistern.

Creating such plans was not something Milaster ever imagined he'd be doing when he moved to the United States from Germany in 1998.

However, looking back, he says it's not surprising that as an engineer he "stumbled" into the field.

After visiting Dream Acreas, an organic farm in Wykoff, Milaster was fascinated by the completely sustainable, off-the-grid lifestyle.

"The idea of sustainable living appealed to my engineer mind," he says.

After two years of research, he built his own sustainable home in rural Lanesboro that he playfully named Project Licht 'n Stein.

"I wanted to create the smallest energy footprint possible without losing any comfort. I like living a completely modern lifestyle with wireless Internet and hot water," he says.

After moving into his solar-heated house, with its $100 a year utility bills, Milaster started hosting open houses to share what he had learned building his rural homestead with a home theater and whole-house stereo system.

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Open house
Christian Milaster is hosting another open house for his Project Licht 'n Stein home in rural Lanesboro from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
The house at 100 Hidden Valley Drive is about 45 minutes from Rochester.

For more information and directions, visit his website.

Yaggy Colby Associates' reorganization

Here's some from my piece on the changes underway at Yaggy Colby Associates. The full article is here:

Responding to changes in the market, a large Rochester engineering and architectural firm is re-organizing into two specialized teams.

Yaggy Colby Associates' architecture and interior design department, led by architects Chris Colby, Jose Rivas and Jason Woodhouse, is spinning off as a separate business called CRW Architectural + Design Group.

However, the new operation is not moving far. The plan is to keep the 11-person CRW team based at 717 Third Ave. S.E. along with the other 55 Yaggy Colby employees in Rochester.

Details are still be worked out, but the new operation is expected to launch next week.

Colby, who merged his architectural firm with one owned by Ron Yaggy in 1987, describes the changes as "friendly."

"We (the architects) have a slightly different business model and marketing concept, so we're going to pursue that and still be friends," he said.

An announcement of the move says CRW's mission "…will be centered on the delivery of architecture and design services with a focus on sustainability and the promotion of green building practices…" for existing clients and new ones.

Downtown university housing project back in mix

Here's some from my piece on the revived university housing/ mixed use complex slated to be built in the 300 block of First Avenue Southwest. The full piece is at http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=2&a=425653:

A proposed university housing project slated for downtown Rochester is back in gear after it was first proposed about two years ago.

Monday night, the Rochester City Council amended the development and purchase agreements it had previously made with the local developer.

The development agreement was first approved by the council back in July 2007.

“We’ve been making pretty significant progress lately,” said Rochester developer and architect Hal Henderson, of the delay caused by the economic downturn.

GH Holdings, led by Henderson and Grant Michalitz, is developing the mixed-used building with nine floors as well as an underground level in the 300 block of First Avenue Southwest.

The University of Minnesota Rochester has committed to leasing space in the GH Holdings building for classrooms, student life areas and reserving a number of the apartments. Final details in the lease need to be completed with UMR, such as how many apartments it needs, before GH can get its financing started, Henderson said.

Portions of the project have changed since the original plans for the building were drawn up in March 2007 and the city approved a tax-increment financing district.

New Shoppes on Second development plan

At the core of Matt Russell's article on the Rochester City Council's 4-3 vote to not impose a proposed development moratorium on Second Street Southwest is the latest version of the proposed Shoppes on Second plan spearheaded by local developer Rick Penz.

Plans for a commercial development at the intersection of Second Street Southwest and 16th Avenue Southwest in front of the Miracle Mile Shopping Center first surfaced publicly in 2007.
That incarnation featured upscale stores and a fondue restaurant. Since then, other versions have floated out as the project has run into obstacles involving the Minnesota Department of Transportation and Miracle Mile.

The latest plan, discussed last night at the meeting, has three buildings - a retail center, a fast food restaurant and a hotel (presumably a Holiday Inn). 

Here's a little from Matt Russell's council story to explain how the development and the proposed moratorium had a head-on collision with only the Shoppes on Second walking away.

The moratorium, brought forward by Council Member Michael Wojcik, was intended to enforce standards proposed by a recent study of Second Street Southwest led by First Homes, an initiative of the Rochester Area Foundation.

The standards, which have yet to be approved by the city council, would reduce maximum parking standards, prohibit drive-through windows, require buildings to be taller than one story, and reduce maximum building setbacks.

A resolution against the moratorium passed 4-3, with council members Ed Hruska, Dennis Hanson, Bruce Snyder, and Bob Nowicki voting in favor. Wojcik, Sandra Means, and Mark Bilderback voted against the resolution.

Earlier this month, when Wojcik proposed the moratorium, he said he wasn't aware of any impending development proposals along Second Street between downtown and U.S. 52.

On Monday, however, he said a proposal had surfaced that went against the design guidelines outlined in the First Homes study.

"The plan is a disgrace to urban planning," Wojcik said, noting that surrounding neighborhoods strongly endorsed the moratorium. "I think we owe the neighborhoods better." Wojcik said Rochester-Olmsted Planning Director Phil Wheeler e-mailed the plans to council members on Monday.

Wheeler said the plans include a fast-food restaurant and a hotel on the northeast corner of U.S. 52 and Second Street Southwest, a site where an upscale mall, Shoppes on Second, had once been proposed.