Kiger's Notebook

New Barbershop shaping up

Looks like the third Rochester location of The Barbershop — A Hair Salon for Men is shaping up.

Arlie Allen along with business partners, Paul and Leah Leisen, own all three locations. The Kasson trio opened their first Med City shop in 2008 near Wal-Mart North and Gander Mountain.

A couple months later, a second one opened in southwest Rochester near CiCi's Pizza and Kohl's.

"Since our north location is turning away customers, we thought this would be a good place to be," says Allen.

The new shop will have seven stations, like the south location. Each station has its own TV with a remote control for each customer. While they are waiting for their cuts, customers can snack on peanuts in the shell, recreating the flavor of classic barber shops from the past.

Furnishing Crossroads Center

Look for the local, family-owned Logan Furniture to open in a new location at the end of this month.

Logan, which closed at the Rochester Market Square home center on July 10, is setting up a new furniture showroom in the Crossroads Shopping Center. The store is moving into the space left vacant by Tuesday Morning, between Hancock Fabrics and Sun Place Tanning.

Tuesday Morning moved into the TJ Maxx & More Plaza.

"We feel great about this move. We think it will really give us the visibility we are looking for along with more space," says Logan Furniture General Manager Matt Logan.

While he plans to add new brands to his selection in the new 6,600-square-foot showroom, Logan stresses that his store is keeping its philosophy of selling only U.S.-made furniture.

"In fact, 90 percent of what we sell is made less than 300 miles away," he says. "This is a very green way of doing business, because it eliminates so much transportation."

Having lower shipping costs means the furniture can be priced competitively, as the consumer pays mainly for manufacturing and quality materials, Logan says.

Though the store will be in a new location, it will still offer free shipping.

Logan Furniture's move means Crossroads Shopping Center is full of tenants.
Blair Meek and Randy Scott of the Professional Management Group handle the center's leasing.

Tax credits jolt local real estate market

Here's some from my piece on the housing scramble this week as everyone rushes to beat the tax credit deadline

To read the full story, go here:

Two numbers — $6,500 and $8,000 — are electrifying the local housing market, jolting potential buyers and sellers into action to beat a Friday deadline.

"It has been crazy for the last two weeks. Everybody is scrambling," says Rochester Realtor Traci Fogelson, president of the Southeast Minnesota Association of Realtors. "Not that I'm complaining."

As part of the federal stimulus plan, qualified first-time home buyers get an $8,000 tax credit, while move-up buyers get a $6,500 credit. But to qualify, a purchase agreement must be signed by the end of Friday.

Homes are being snapped up by buyers at a rate unseen since the recession started in 2006, real estate agents say.

In Rochester, 1,300 homes are on the market. Of those homes, 69 were first listed for sale last week, 44 percent more than hit the market during that week last year.

During March, pending sales were up 28 percent from a year earlier, with much of the action later in the month.

Landscaper to expand, move to Kasson

This is the follow-up to the earlier tease about Kasson landing new businesses. And yes, Trisha was correct. One of the three new businesses is Jason Wilkers Retaining Wall and Pavers:

Jason Wilkers Retaining Wall and Pavers is being transplanted to a new home in Kasson from its current spot in Byron.

And Wilkers is planting more than roots for his business in his new location on Eighth Avenue Northwest, also known as the Dump Road.

He is planting trees to eventually grow into a nursery.

While it will be a long time until that project bears fruit, Wilkers expects to be have his landscaping operation up and running by early May.

It will be more than double the size his business. Wilkers has four on staff now and will probably hire four to five more.

Kasson is open for business

The Kasson City Council locked down deals at its meeting last week to bring three new businesses into the city.

One of the business is moving from another area town, one is growing from a home-based operation to building a new facility and the third is the opening of a new retail store.

Had a nice chat with Mike Martin, Kasson's city planner/economic development coordinator this morning.

I should have the details on these deals in print/on blog soon.

Action in Kasson?

Hearing some buzz that a prominent empty commercial space in Kasson might soon have a new tenant.

I have calls in on this, so I should find out the chatter is right or not in the near future.

And yes, for all the funny people out there, I am certain this is about Kasson and not another nearby K city.

Or at least I'm pretty sure.

Heh.

Mea culpa - my last mistake of 2009

You’d think after living here and writing about the area for more than 10 years, I’d be able to keep the names of cities straight.

But you’d be wrong, if you thought that.

Case in point, I mixed-up Kenyon for Kasson in my Dec. 31 column.

The Kenyon Lumber Mart, also known as KLM, closed Nov. 24 and is for sale.

Meanwhile, the Kasson Arrow Building Center is open, is renovating its showroom and is adding cabinets to its offerings.Prior to becoming an Arrow Building Center,  the Kasson business was known as a lumber mart.

Hence, my goof-up not only was wrong, but it confused people who still think of the Kasson center by its pre-2002 name.

The K with a closed lumber yard is Kenyon. The K with an open lumber yard is Kasson.

I’m sorry for the error. Luckily it was still in 2009, so 2010 is error-free … for the moment, at least.

Kasson action = Daniels buys Diggers

I know this is pretty well known by now. But here are the details:

One Kasson eatery is digging in by acquiring a nearby, well-known watering hole.

The owners of Daniel’s Restaurant & Northwoods Lounge bought Digger’s Bar & Grill.

Sunday was Digger’s last day as a bar. However, it will live on through its attached events center.

“We’ll be open as an event-only facility. So the bar is not going to be open on a day-to-day basis,” says Dan Gadient, the majority owner of Daniel’s.

Why take this step? “It has been very difficult for us to do catering for weddings and meetings of any size because we don’t have the facility to do it in,” he said. “It is one way for us to expand our business almost overnight.”

So Gadient and his partners, which include his wife, MargAnn, head chef Tony and Malia Saker and the Gadients’ daughter, Danielle Schmitz, with her husband, Matt, bought Diggers from Dick Schwanke.

Why not keep the bar open and use the event facility?

“That would be too much at once. We’re taking one giant step right now. The event center is big enough,” Gadient said. He did not discount re-opening the bar at a later date.

What about people who already have events scheduled at Digger’s this summer? The Daniel’s crew will honor those agreements, starting with events this week.

“We have fielded a lot of calls from nervous brides. Don’t worry. We’ll take of them,” Gadient says.

Kasson action?

Following up intriguing tip out of Kasson. 

We'll see if any action is really cooking in the cauldron known as Kasson.

Wind energy co. opens Kasson office

A new office recently blew into Kasson – wind energy developer High Country Energy.

High Country, which is developing wind-generated 300 to 500 megawatt projects in Dodge, Olmsted, and Mower Counties, decided it needed a local office. High Country is local firm created last year with its parent company, National Wind LLC based in the Twin Cities

“We think it is important to have local offices for our wind projects,” says Erin Edholm, National Wind’s director of communications. “It is important to have a local face on the project."

Actually, there are two local faces. The office at 122 West Main Street in Kasson is staffed by Missy Kelley jeff kiger 12/9/08CQ and Dan Hemmingsenjeff kiger 12/9/08CQ, field specialists for High Country Energy.

The office will have information available anyone interested in the project. That includes the 124 landowners that High Country has signed leases with and the 65 Minnesota investors. People from Rochester, Austin, Hayfield, Kasson, Sargeant, Byron, and Dodge Center are involved.

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While the primary goal is to create a wind project to generate 300 megawatts, Edholm says they’d “like to go to 500 megawatts. 

How many acres does it take to support a project like that? She estimates that would take 50,000 acres.

“It is kind of a long term goal,” said Edholm.

The project timeline is for construction to start at 2011 with it going into operation in 2012. The 300 megawatts level is expected to start in 2013.

National Wind also has similar projects in the works, Goodhue Wind in Goodhue County and Root River Energy in Fillmore County. Edholm says those project could their own offices someday in the future.