Kiger's Notebook

Chinese food cooking again in Stewartville

Jacky Dong is extending the reach of his Chinese food beyond Rochester with a planned opening of a third restaurant.

Dong, who with his family owns Hunan Garden and Kingdom Buffet in Rochester, is gearing up to open New Hunan in Stewartville. He hopes to open the doors at 106 First St. by mid-December.

“We have a lot of customers from Stewartville. They talked to me and asked me for it,” he says.

The Stewartville eatery will offer take-out and dine-in service from the same menu as Hunan Garden. He expects to have about four people on staff to start.

The deal was brokered by Darci Fenske of Paramark Real Estate.

The work in Stewartville follows a renovation project earlier this month in Rochester that added windows to the exterior wall of the 26-year-old Hunan Garden in the Northgate Shopping Center, 1120 Seventh St. N.W.

“Customers are coming in and saying it looks totally different. It is a lot brighter in there now,” Dong says.

He plans to also replace the carpet and tile in that restaurant in the spring.

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.

Evidence of Walgreens impending opening in Roch.

Well, following my highly attuned instincts and heightened journalistic senses, I dug up the fact that Rochester's new Walgreens drug store along south Broadway is slated to open at 8 a.m.Thursday.

Uh…OK… I just read comments made by readers on this blog and read the big, flashing sign with red lights in front of the shiny new store.

Anyway, many people seem giddy about this, while others see it just as another retail opening. However, any openings these days are notable

Think Bank + Ex-Pump and Munch

Here's the follow-up to the earlier bank and c-store tease:

Think Mutual Bank hopes to move its southwest branch to the site of a former convenience store with good access to U.S. 52 and Salem Road.

The Rochester-based bank last week bought the BP Pump N Munch convenience store at 1509 Greenview Drive S.W., which closed earlier this year. It paid $785,895, according to Olmsted County records.

The long-term strategy is to move the bank’s current southwest branch at 1698 Greenview Drive S.W. to a yet-to-be-built building on the Pump N Munch site, says Kirk Muhlenbruck, Think’s senior vice president of community banking.

“This is about being more efficient. The current Greenview location is much larger than we need,” he says.

That branch was constructed before Think, then a credit union, built its headquarters at 5200 Members Parkway N.W., off West Circle Drive.

Once that was built, it took over some of the work that originally was done at the Greenview site, Muhlenbruck said.The branch along Salem Road near U.S. 52 also will be more convenient for customers, he said.

Staffing will remain about the same. The southwest branch has a staff of about 20 that provides retail banking, home finance, investment banking and insurance services.

While a new structure eventually will be built there, don’t expect any construction on the ex-BP site soon.

“It could be a couple years or longer,” says Muhlenbruck.

The bank is working on a transition strategy to minimize the impact on customers, and it’s working on plans for the existing branch.Think Mutual Bank is a $1.4 billion full-service banking institution with eight branches in Rochester and the Twin Cities.

Mechanical contractor leaving Roch.

The word is that a regional mechanical is pulling back its Rochester and consolidating it with another location in a nearby state.

I'm pretty sure about this one, but I don't have confirmation from the contractor yet.

So keep your vents clear. I should be blowing in with final answers and details soon.

Ex-Pump and Munch to become bank branch

 The buzz is that one of the former BP Pump and Munch stations in Rochester has been sold and will eventually become a bank branch.

This is part of a larger strategy by the local bank to replace a current facility. Don't expect construction any time soon.

I'll have more detail on this soon.

Rochester fitness club + makeover

One of Rochester’s longtime fitness facilities is getting a makeover.

Northgate Health Club at 1112 Seventh St. N.W. in Northgate Center is undergoing what its owner Dave Skinner calls its “most comprehensive facility upgrade” in its more than 30-year history at the location.

This makeover will include painting, a new wood fitness class floor, refinishing and installing new “green” energy-efficient overhead lighting.

Skinner says every part of the club will be affected.

Phase one is under way. It’s focused on the lobby, group fitness classroom and the indoor pool facility.

Skinner expects to be done by Christmas with this phase. More will follow.

The 24-hour club will remain open while the work is done.

This upgrade was launched after Skinner signed a lease extension through 2011.

Fiksdal Hotel renovates, upgrades

Here's some from a piece I have in today's edition about a $750,000 upgrade/ renovation at the Fiksdal Hotel, built in 1966, across Second Street Southwest from St. Marys Hospital.

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When it was built in 1966, the Fiksdal Hotel cost $1 million.

Now 43 years later, its owners are spending almost as much — about $750,000 — for an extensive remodel and upgrade of the interior of the 53-room hotel across from Saint Marys Hospital on Second Street Southwest.

“Sometimes when you have an old look on the exterior, people think it is like that inside,” said Blake Hoffman, a co-owner of Blue Mountain Development. “People like an ‘old home feel,’ but they don’t to go back to 1960s. They want modern amenities.”

Hoffman’s group recently recommended to the owners of the Fiksdal, Blue Stem Capital of Sioux Fall, S.D., and Glen Fiksdal of Rochester, that they re-invest “a pretty good chunk of capital into it.”

Blue Stem also owns the Staybridge Suites hotel next door to the Fiksdal.

When the green light for the renovation was given, work began with upgrading the hotel’s heating-and-cooling system and roof as well as removing the dark tint film on the windows.

“The film was all bubbly,” said Charmayne Cochran, the general manager and director of sales for the Fiksdal as well as the Staybridge Suites.

As workers on scaffolding tackled that project outside, work started inside in early October. Starting with the sixth floor, each level is shut down for a week as about 20 workers swarm through the halls and rooms painting, replacing carpet and updating the decor to current standards.

The lobby is also getting a facelift, and the hotel’s computer system is being upgraded from an antiquated DOS-based system.

Cochran and Hoffman point out that local contractors were hired and the financing was handled by a Rochester bank, Home Federal Bank.

While the inside of the hotel is moving forward in time, the exterior remains as a memorial to 1960s-style with the stylized logo and large turquoise blue panels.

Why not update the outside also?

“It’s still in good shape. I don’t know what they used, but the colors haven’t faded,” said Hoffman. “It gives the hotel some of its historic appeal. The look is pretty much its brand.”

A Touching story

Here’s a touching Rochester story.

Healing Touch is moving its spa and massage business to two locations.

Owner Mary Jo Majerus explains that the 23-year-old business is moving completely out of its long-time home in the Kahler Hotel subway in downtown Rochester.

Chair massages in the subway under the downtown Rochester Marriott Hotel still will be offered.

The spa services are going to the second floor of the University Square Mall next week. The massage portion part will move in with the Massage & Spa Professional Academy at 17 13 1/2 St. N. on Monday.

While the University Square space will be long-term, Majerus says moving in with the school, which she also owns, is temporary.

Back in August, Majerus announced plans to move into the former Audibel Hearing Center on North Broadway between Taco Bell and Dairy Queen. That didn’t work out, because it could not accommodate her salon business.

To stay open in the short term, she is splitting things up and dropping the salon for now.
She hopes to find a location or a partner to house the spa, salon and her school in one place.

Mavo on the move

An accidental blaze in January ruined plans to expand its Rochester office, but Mavo Systems now has a new and much larger place to call home in Med City.

Mavo Systems, an environmental and mechanical systems contractor, closed on the purchase Friday of a 9,000-square-foot building at 3030 Prow Lane N.E., near Valleyhigh Drive Northwest.

Dana Krakowski, Mavo’s director of sales, says the firm based in White Bear Lake, Minn., has about 50 on staff in Rochester. It has been working out of the ex-Mill’s Fleet Farm store on U.S. 63 South since the fire at 6844 10th Ave. S.W.

Why have such a large presence in Rochester?

“We do a lot of work for Mayo Clinic and IBM and Rochester Public Schools,” she says.

The firm does environmental work like removing asbestos, lead and toxic flooring. It also does mechanical installation, flooring treatments like polishing concrete as well as other services.