Kiger's Notebook

Holiday to close the "runt" of SA C-store litter

It looks like the addition of Holiday gas stations to Rochester will mean the subtraction of a current station from the market.

The buzz going around South Broadway is that when Holiday takes ownership of the six SuperAmerica stations in Rochester on May 1, one of them will go dark.

Officials with Bloomington-based Holiday have not responded to inquiries about changes in the Med City. However, there is evidence to support this closing theory. Rochester building permits show that Holiday signs are going up at all of the Super America stations, except the one on South Broadway.

People in the neighborhood around the station say they are hearing the store is closing because it's the smallest in the batch. The 18-year-old Broadway station is 1,900 square feet. By comparison, SA's station on Second Street Southwest is about 1,500 square feet larger.

Of course, having a Kwik Trip station right next to the South Broadway SA probably didn't help its perceived viability.

If that station does go dark, it will be interesting to see what happens next. Holiday does have a history of selling its "surplus real estate," so there's a good chance that lot will go on the market.

For obvious reasons (see previous sentence about Kwik Trip), it will probably not become another gas station.

So what could go there? 

I'd say a coffee shop, small diner or even a fast food place (Dare I say… White Castle?) could be reasonable options for that high traffic area along South Broadway.

Even a bar might work there. Remember, Beer Bellyz is a converted Holiday gas station.

Appeals Court reverses ruling on Rochester Buffalo Wild Wings dispute

The owners of Rochester's Crossroads Shopping Center feel vindicated by a  Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling in their favor in a long-running battle over a proposed Buffalo Wild Wings.

"I've always said, 'If anyone in the courts follow the law, we'll win,'" says Bob Meek, who owns Crossroads with Vic Scott. "It gives me faith that the judicial system is functioning properly. I was starting to have my doubts."

After losing three battles at the planning commission, the Rochester City Council and then in Olmsted County District Court, Crossroads won the legal war in the end.

Monday's ruling reversed a June ruling by Olmsted County Judge Nancy Buytendorp that dismissed Crossroads' lawsuit against BWW owner Graf Enterprises and the city of Rochester.

The dispute was over the city's approval of  Rochester businessman Tom Graf's plan to build a 7,000-square-foot Buffalo Wild Wings in the lot in front of the Crossroads center. Graf introduced the development plan in 2011, when he purchased Pannekoeken Huis restaurant, demolished it and then filed to build his second Rochester BWW on the site.

"We are extremely disappointed in the appellate court ruling," Graf said Monday afternoon.

What does this mean for his plans to build a second Buffalo Wild Wings and his ownership of the land surrounded by Crossroads property?

"We are taking a look at our options," he said.

Parking is at the heart of this dispute . The city-approved plan called for 55 parking spaces — 35 on Graf's plot of land and 20 spaces in the surrounding Crossroads parking lot.

That calculation was made with the understanding that the proposed restaurant is part of the business center. Otherwise the proposed restaurant would require 88 parking spaces.

The Crossroads owners long have said that the city ordinances were not being followed and that the plan took their property away and gave it to Graf for his use.

"For a developer and a shopping center, excess parking is money in the bank," said Meek.

In the appeals court ruling, the judges sided with Crossroads' position, writing "Because Crossroads' protectable right to the parking spaces on its property is placed in jeopardy by the city's actions, Crossroads has standing, its claim is ripe and the district court erred by dismissing the claim on justiciability grounds."

The ruling stated that the city staff did not follow Rochester's own ordinances in regards to what is part of a business center and if Graf had enough control of the Crossroads' parking spaces to warrant allowing him to use 22 of them.

City Attorney Terry Adkins said that the ruling means that the city planning department will now need to "strictly" apply the ordinances.

For his part, Meek said he was relieved to have the case resolved after so long, though he still feels it should not have played out the way it did.

"I think it is terrible that a private party like us had to spend so much on a lengthy case just to prove the city wasn't following their own rules," he said.

Plug pulled on IBM's record breaking computer Roadrunner

IBM's record-breaking Roadrunner supercomputer was the fastest computer in the world when introduced five years ago.

But this week, it was retired and soon will be dismantled, surpassed by other machines in the fast-evolving world of supercomputers.

The Roadrunner, which owed much of its hybrid design and manufacture to Big Blue's Rochester campus, was the first machine to break the computer industry's "sound barrier" in 2008 by clocking a petaflop or one quadrillion calculations per second.

“We just all looked around and said, ‘We made it,’” stated Peter Keller, who was part of the Rochester manufacturing team that recorded that historic milestone on May 25, 2008.

The plug was pulled on the $121 million supercomputer on Easter Sunday at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

"Roadrunner, while I would not define it as strictly obsolete, it has been surpassed by newer technology," said Kevin Roark, of Los Alamos. "It's perfectly normal. …This is the natural progression."

Roadrunner's duties are being shifted over to Los Alamos' Cielo supercomputer, which is made by Seattle-based Cray Inc. Two years younger than Roadrunner, Roark describes it as faster, smaller, less expensive and more energy-efficient than its IBM predecessor.

Until it was shut down, Roadrunner ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week since being delivered to the laboratory via 25 trucks.

While it now is being experimented on as it waits to be dismantled and shredded, Roadrunner took Los Alamos' work on the United States' nuclear weapons stockpile to a new level.

"It has performed remarkably well. It has really helped us solve some fundamental problems that were essentially unsolvable before a computer of its speed," Roark said.

It wasn't just its speed that made Roadrunner so groundbreaking. The revolutionary hybrid design that coordinated the use of different types of computer chips, including Cell chips originally designed in Rochester to be used in Sony's PlayStation 3 video game system.

"Roadrunner was a truly pioneering idea," said Gary Grider, of Los Alamos' High Performance Computing Division, in a statement. "Roadrunner got everyone thinking in new ways about how to build and use a supercomputer."

Los Alamos teamed up with IBM to build Roadrunner from commercially available parts. They ended up with 278 refrigerator-size racks filled with two different types of processors, all linked together by 55 miles of fiber optic cable.

The supercomputer has been used over the last five years to model viruses and unseen parts of the universe, to better understand lasers and for nuclear weapons work. That includes simulations aimed at ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation's aging arsenal.

Roadrunner was the world's fastest computer for 18 months. At its peak, it was two times faster than Blue Gene/L, which was IBM’s star machine and the fastest computer in the world in 2007.

Its historic speed kept Roadrunner on the Top 500 Fastest Computers list, despite being outdated. It still ranked as 22nd fastest machine in the world in November.

IBM had four of the top 10 fastest computers on that November list, and all had roots in Rochester. Sequoia, a BlueGene/ Q, took the No. 2 spot behind Cray's Titan. Other BlueGenes — Miram JUQUEEN and Fermi — locked up the fourth, fifth and ninth spots.

New building proposed for deposed Burger King site

After eight years as an empty building gathering dust, a proposed development might mean that it's time to say farewell to Rochester's deposed King.

This royal saga begins with an ending, so here's a slightly condensed version of the history to provide background for the new chapter.

In 2005, the Burger King at 4107 U.S. 52 N. closed its doors after a dispute between franchisee Road Corp., which was owned by Girish Dharod, and the royal fast food corporation ended with all five of Rochester's BKs being shut down.

Burger King shifted the Rochester area franchises to the Twin Cities-based Dolphin Corp., which quickly re-opened three of the five restaurants.

The two others — the North 52 location and the one at 615 S. Broadway — were owned by the Dallas, Texas-based Z’s American Properties. Z's American Properties is owned by Sunil Dharod, Girish's brother.

Eventually, a real estate auction of the two ex-BKs was held in 2006. Dolphin was the top bidder, but Sunil Dharod later rejected the bids.

A frustrated Greg Dolphin said he was ready to “go back to the drawing board" and pursue other Rochester sites to open more Burger Kings. True to his word, Dolphin is planning to build a new restaurant on a long empty chunk of land at the corner of 12th Street Southeast and Marion Road Southeast. When completed, it will be the new home for the BK that's now based in the nearby Cub Food Plaza.

In the ensuing years, the South Broadway building became the Tex-Mex eatery Rico Mex. That closed in 2008. It was bought up by the University of Minnesota Rochester and demolished to clear the way for a future campus.

Meanwhile, Sunil Dharod's other building sat quietly, tucked away in its nook on the U.S. 52 frontage road

That could all change now that Z's American Properties has filed plans with the city to build a 7,400-square-foot complex. The plans show it split into two units — a 2,400-square-foot restaurant and a 5,000-square-foot retail site. Rochester's McGhie & Betts is handling the design duties.

The building plans were filed with the city this week, so it might be a while before anything happens at the faded fast food site. If the plan does move forward, it'll be interesting to see what restaurant might open there.

Like his brother, Sunil Dharod was a franchisee with Burger King. At one point, he had 18 BKs as well as many Applebee's restaurants. His BKs were auctioned off in 2011. The Dallas Morning News described the split as being "Beset by lawsuits, slumping sales and hard feelings."

Sunil Dharod still has his flourishing portfolio of 43 Applebee's, all of which are in Texas. However, an Applebee's doesn't seem a likely candidate for the new spot, since one is already cooking across the highway. Since the plans include a drive-through window, it looks like some sort of fast food entity is in mind.

Crossroads vs Wild Wings case could be nearing conclusion

After more than a year in legal limbo, the final fate of a plan to build a second Buffalo Wild Wings in Rochester could possibly be officially resolved in the next few months.

On Thursday morning, the Minnesota Court of Appeals is slated to hear the dispute between the owners of the Crossroads Shopping Center and BWW owner Graf Enterprises and as well as the City of Rochester.

The Crossroads owners, Bob Meek and Vic Scott, are once again taking their objections to a higher court. They object to Tom Graf's development plan to build a 7,000-square-foot sports bar and eatery in front of the shopping center.

This all started when Graf purchased Pannekoeken Huis restaurant and then demolished it in September 2011 to clear space to build a south side version of his very popular, north Rochester Buffalo Wings sports bar.

He submitted a building plan to the city, which approved the project in December 2011. The Crossroads folks say the plan does not actually meet the city's requirements and should never have been OKed as it is.

The approved plan calls for 55 spaces — 35 on Graf's plot of land and 20 spaces in the surrounding Crossroads parking lot. The mall owners contend that that the 20 parking spaces on their property could limit future expansion plans. They say they would welcome the Buffalo Wild Wings, if all of the parking was restricted to land owned by Graf.

Meek and Scott first took their objections to the Rochester Zoning Board of Appeals. When the board ruled in favor of the Graf project, Crossroads appealed to the Rochester City Council. The council backed the zoning board's decision.

Next the mall owners filed the lawsuit against Graf and the city of Rochester to appeal the council's ruling. In June, Olmsted County Judge Nancy Buytendorp dismissed the lawsuit saying, "Crossroads has no justifiable controversy to pursue this lawsuit against the city of Rochester or Graf…"

Crossroads responded by filing for an appeal of Buytendorp's ruling claiming she applied the wrong standard of judgment to the case.

As the case has been batted around courtrooms by attorneys, Graf has repeatedly said that no matter how case is finally resolved, he still plans to build a BWW on his land in front of Crossroads.

If he loses, he'll adjust the plans to meet the rules. If he wins definitively, then Graf will turn Weis Builders loose to start work on the square of dirt surrounded by Crossroads pavement  and in the shadow of "Coming Soon" sign.

On Thursday, a panel of three judges in St. Paul will give both sides 15 minutes each to make their case. Graf's attorney and the City of Rochester's attorney will split their side's 15 minutes.

The appeals court will have up to 90 days to issue a ruling on whether Judge Buytendorp's erred in her judgment in favor of Graf and the city.

One possible course of action that could stretch out this case even more would be a ruling that sends the case back to Olmsted County to be decided by a jury trial.

Even if that doesn't happen, it could still be a while before Graf's plan to build moves ahead.

AutoZone driving ahead with 2nd Roch. store

After a pause in the project this fall, it looks like a car parts retailer is cleared to park a new store on a high-profile south Rochester corner.

AutoZone, the leader in the national auto parts retail race, is ready to start grading the lot at South Broadway and 16th Street to prep the site for construction.

That's the spot overlooking the intersection, where the long-empty BP Pump-N-Munch C-store was recently demolished.

This deal first surfaced in April, when Hamilton Real Estate put up a "Sold" sign across the "For Sale" banner. Then it was quiet for a few months other than some chatter about some sort car-related shop rumored to be in the works.

The engine started to race in August, when a permit rolled into the city offices for the demolition of the Pump-N-Munch to be followed by the construction of an AutoZone store. The Memphis-based gear head chain planned follow the Rochester tradition of opening a pair of north/south stores to cover the Med City. Think Target, Wal-mart, Menard's, ShopKo and even Snappy Stop.

Somewhere along the way, the plan seemed to hit a axle-rattling stretch of rough road. Nothing moved on that corner throughout most of the fall.

Then another version of the demo permit drove up with the name of Kato Inc. on it. Kato, the Rochester firm run by John Jensen and Jack Briggs, owns the building, just as it did the other six Pump-N-Munches before closing them in 2009. Notably, the name of AutoZone was no where to be seen on the second version of the application. The building was dropped last month and then squeegeed off the site like it was a smashed bug on a windshield.

Now it looks that the deal has turned the corner. It seems to be in the final stretch and AutoZone is now clearly behind the wheel.

The official paperwork asking for permission to start moving dirt to prep the lot for a construction was filed this week. An AutoZone store is once again described as the ultimate destination.

City to demolish ex-halal market

With an expectation that the land will eventually be sold to the University of Minnesota Rochester, the City of Rochester is demolishing a small 62-year-old building that last housed a halal meat market.

A demolition permit was filed this week for the 3,000-square-foot brick building at 114 Sixth St. S.W. The City of Rochester bought the empty building from Ahmednur Ahmed in August for $245,000.

"We bought it with the intention that we'd take it down and eventually sell it to the University of Minnesota for their future campus," says Doug Knott, the city’s downtown development director.

That's the same scenerio that saw the City of Rochester buy the ex-KTTC building at at 609 First Ave. S.W plus an adjacent one. Those buildings, which were between the YMCA and the halal market, have since been demolished.

The halal market is now being prepared for demolition. Once it is torn down, the site will be filled in with soil and planted with grass, says Knott.

Then, like the other two empty lots, will await UMR's eventual purchase.

Downtown grocery, apt. complex shaping up

As the Rochester street work around it wraps up, it looks like construction is going full tilt on the Metropolitan Market Place complex at First Avenue and Sixth Street Southwest.

Wisconsin-based Gerrard Corp. is building the four-story apartment complex with the new People’s Food Cooperative (former Good Food Store) grocery on the main level.

It will have 62 apartments when all of the dust settles.

A little farther south on First Avenue, the University of Minnesota Rochester recently bought a two-story office complex in preparation for its long-term plan of building a 10.5 acre campus in that area.

I have more on that in an article in today's paper.

If I understand the future plans correctly, the Metro Market complex will be basically across the First Ave./Sixth St. intersection from the entrance to this future university campus. Not a bad place to be, I'd guess.

 

Real wrecking ball + faux log cabin

It really isn't a Rochester landmark per say, but I'd guess most people who drive North Broadway regularly know what building I mean when I say "That fake log cabin by Silver Lake."

If you don't know it, there no reason to become to familiar with it at this point. That's because it is not long for this world.

A demolition permit has been filed for "…the cabin being used as an office" at 1214 N. Broadway. For an estimated $8,000 in demolition costs, it is being scraped away to add three more parking spaces.

There was an Allstate Insurance based there, but they're not there now.

It certainly isn't an ear of corn tower or the pig on Cheap Charlie's, but it is colorful piece of faux Med City landscape that's going away soon.

Ex-BP Pump-N-Munch to disappear into Zone?

It looks like after many years of standing empty, the long-empty BP Pump-N-Munch C-store on South Broadway at 16th Street could be scraped off the high-profile corner.

 A plan has been submitted to the city to demolish the former gas station to clear the site for the construction of a new store. AutoZone is revving up to build its second Rochester store on the site.

However, the deal is still in play as the city staffers look over the plans, and final design tweaks are in the works.

If everything works out as AutoZone and owners of ex-Pump-N-Munch hope, this project will fire up action on the corner that has been quiet — except for the sale of sweet corn where the pumps used to stand — since the convenience store closed in 2009.

John Jensen and Jack Briggs of Kato Inc. closed seven of their Pump-N-Munches in rapid succession that summer. Since then, most have been demolished or re-purposed.

Once the gas station is history, construction plans call for a new 6,446-square-foot AutoZone auto parts store to be built there, The proposal shows 35 parking spots for the store.

No one from AutoZone or anyone associated with the property was available for comment about the possible store. Right now the project is just waiting to be cleared for take off by the city.

If this deal can finally click after being the works for quite a while, it would mean AutoZone could park a store in south Rochester near its two main national competitors in the fierce auto-parts race — Advance Auto Parts and O'Reilly Auto Parts.

AutoZone, the industry leader very closely followed by the other two, already has a store on North Broadway.