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.

Home Fed Bank sells building, keeps branch

Home Federal Bank sold its building at 3900 55th St. N.W., which houses one of its branches.

Les Nelson of Clear Lake, Iowa, who owns many commercial buildings in the Med City, bought it for more than $2 million in mid-October.Home Federal built the 9,800-square-foot building in 2002.

The bank branch will remain open and will lease 700-square-feet of space from Nelson.

A U.S Veterans Administration clinic leases the rest of the building.

“We’re looking for efficiencies, and it had become more challenging to find tenants,” says bank president Brad Krehbiel. “This was a timely opportunity. We were made a fair offer.”A staff of about five work in the 55th Street branch.

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.

Greater Revelation and wigging out

Renee Kolle  is moving her downtown businesses. She is taking things down a level to expand and really “wig” out.

Kolle is moving Revelation and Les Wigs Renee from the mezzanine level down to the former Sphinx Gift Shop space on the street level of the Kahler Grand Hotel.

That will give her room to expand the two stores and connect them with her other shop in the Kahler’s lobby, Merle Norman Cosmetics.

“We’re going to knock down a wall. It will be like a store-in-a-store,” she says. “It will be very upscale.”

Kolle hopes to re-open by mid- to late January.

Expect her to add to her clothing and gift options in Revelation.

Besides the clothes made from organic materials and even bamboo, she will offer more high-fashion clothes with a youthful look. For travelers, she will still have easy-care clothes and a selection of necessities.

In the Les Wigs section, she will grow the selection to more than 300, she says. She also will add men’s hairpieces.

New movie + Red Wing roller derby skates

Here's some from an interesting piece from the P-B's man in Red Wing, Brett Boese.

RED WING -- Bob Riegelman took his wife out for dinner three years ago and capped the night with a visit to Roy Wilkins Auditorium. To watch roller derby.

Though 5,000 rabid fans packed the place to cheer on their favorite skaters -- Harmony Killerbruise, Citizen Pain and Hanna Belle Lector, to name a few -- Cherie Riegelman was less than impressed.

"This is the sport I'm involved in," the president of Riedell Inc. desperately tried to explain.

It's a sport that no longer needs an introduction.

Drew Barrymore made the niche sport accessible to the public in "Whip It," her directorial debut that hit theaters last month. It was filmed almost entirely in Detroit, but has strong ties to the Red Wing area. When Barrymore began looking for equipment, the seasoned skaters she enlisted as cast members recommended Riedell Inc. in Red Wing.

The double stripe skate -- Riedell's trademark -- soon became everpresent in the movie and its promotional events. The movie used 55 skates and other equipment provided by the company.

Yeah, the returning retail is J.Jill

You guys are way too sharp for me.Particularly when you notice signs being put up. Heh.

Yes, the store that left Rochester in June and now is returning is J.Jill, the women's clothing shop. It is moving back into Rochester's Apache Mall.

Don't have many details yet, other than confirmation.

                                                               Stay tuned.

Labor shift - Union moves into new Rochester offices

The labor group that represents 1,200 workers at Mayo Clinic’s Saint Marys Hospital recently took on new digs in southwest Rochester.

In late October, Service Employee International Union Healthcare Minnesota moved out of the space on North Broadway that it has long shared with another labor group, Unite-Here Local 21.

Unite-Here previously represented the healthcare workers in Rochester. When those workers voted to work with SEIU, it created a space crunch for the union, says Ashley Christenson of the St. Paul-based organization.

“We wanted more space and a new location that would better accommodate our needs,” she says.

The group found that location on Second Street Southwest in the Corporate Gardens complex, next to Kwik Trip. Six to seven people work in the office.

The deal was brokered by Darci Fenske of Paramark Real Estate

Mayo Clinic's retiring CEO to partner w/ Smoldt

Here's an interesting tidbit from health reporter Jeff Hansel on what Mayo Clinic's top leader will do after he retire.
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When Mayo Clinic’s departing national president and CEO Dr. Denis Cortese retires Nov. 20, he’ll leave Rochester — but he’ll rekindle an old partnership.

Mayo spokesman Karl Oestreich said Cortese will work in concert with former Mayo national chief administrative officer Bob Smoldt.

Together, they’ll lead the new Healthcare Delivery and Policy Program at Arizona State University.

The program “will focus on health care delivery changes that result in higher value health care, as well as the role of public policy in delivery system reform,” Oestreich said.

He noted that Cortese will stay involved in health-care reform and continue to support the mission of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center’s efforts.

Smoldt led the center in 2007 while he transitioned out of his role as Mayo chief administrative officer. But he and Cortese will reprise their roles, this time at Arizona State.

Fed Reserve banker on investing in early childhood development

Here's some from the piece I wrote following up the talk by Art Rolnick of the Federal reserve bank at a Rochester luncheon Tuesday.

I may have more – additional detail that I did not have space for in print - from this to put up soon.

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What is the best investment businesses and communities can make for the future with the greatest return?

That’s the question that Art Rolnick, a senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank set out to answer before a crowd of about 150 local leaders at a luncheon Tuesday sponsored by the Rochester Area Foundation’s First Steps early children development program.

Bidding or luring companies from other states or nearby cities to bring their jobs and money to your community is absolutely the wrong way to approach economic development, he said. That doesn’t create anything.“The right way to do it is to invest in human capital,” Rolnick said.

And that investment needs to start early, when people are young, from the womb to five years old.

An investment in quality early childhood education from the womb to five years old averages out an annual inflation-adjusted return of 16 percent, he said, pointing out that the only people promising returns like that lately have been involved with Ponzi scams.

“Most of that (16 percent) return is a public return,” Rolnick said.

Rolnick began looking at that issue “through an economic lens.”

What they saw was compelling. Studies show children in at-risk families who receive quality early childhood education to prepare for kindergarten are 50 percent less likely to commit a crime than their peers who did not receive that preparation. It also shows positive effects for the children’s health and for spurring their parents to better themselves with education.

While those benefits are documented through multiple studies, 50 percent of Minnesota children fail a kindergarten readiness assessment.

Rolnick’s analysis determined for an investment in children and families preparing for kindergarten to be effective it needs to accomplish these things:

• Start with at-risk families.
• Engage parents.
• Offer high quality services.

• Start early.

• Make it measurable.

• Be able to bring it to scale.

Benchmark cuts contract workers

An all-too-familar scene played out last week, this time at Benchmark Electronics, Inc.

A group of 14 workers showed up for their $10 per hour shift assembling circuit boards. But instead of starting, they were told their work contract was ending immediately.

The buzz among the group was that other shifts of workers totaling 35 were released earlier, bringing the estimated number people losing jobs to 49.

This abrupt and unexpected end was two months earlier than originally planned when the crew was hired, says one of the workers.

Many workers were hired in August for a gig that was to run through December to handle what was expected to be an increase in manufacturer orders, said the worker, who wished to remain anonymous.

Officials at the Angleton, Texas-based contract manufacturer confirmed that “contract workers hired for temporary situations”  were let go, though no full-time Benchmark employees were affected.

The worker who contacted me said everyone cut had been working 40 hours a week.
The talk on the assembly line was that apparently expected orders for medical devices fell though for November and December.
It all adds up to a local facility having less work and Rochester having  “… a greater pool of unemployed workers in an already crowded field,” the former contract worker said.