Minnesota Business Developments

by Rhonda Mix - rhonda.mix@state.mn.us
April  2010

Northern

The Minnesota Job Skills Partnership (MJSP) program of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) announced a $41,303 grant to support training for 32 employees of C & M Ford, located in Hallock, and Roseau County Ford, located in Roseau. The two-year training collaboration includes MJSP, C & M Ford, Roseau County Ford, and Northland Community and Technical College (NCTC). The dealerships and NCTC will collaborate to provide lean training, strategic business planning facilitation, quality improvement, metrics identification, and leadership performance coaching. Training will be customized for employees at each dealership.

Central

The $26.5 million expansion of Meeker Memorial Hospital in Litchfield is complete. The renovation and expansion project included updates to the emergency room, surgical suites, rehabilitation center, and birthing suites. A 75,000-square-foot expansion resulted in the addition of an MRI machine, 25 private inpatient rooms, a new helipad, and expanded parking lots.

Twin Cities Metro

Construction has begun on a new $30 million plant for Baldinger Bakery on St. Paul’s east side. The new 144,000-square-foot bakery is slated for completion this December. The new facility, which will be three times the size of Baldinger’s current facility located on St. Paul’s west side, will be a candidate for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). It will feature a 130,000-square-foot white roof to keep the building cool in the summer and a heat-recovery system from the oven stack to reduce the use of conventional electricity. The bakery needs the new facility in order to update its operations and allow for continued growth. Over the next 10 years, the company plans to add 42 employees to its current workforce of 100. Once complete, the new bakery will be able to produce 64,000 hamburger buns an hour.

Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota will build a new 46,000-square-foot health care center and administrative headquarters building at Charles and Vandalia streets in St. Paul. The three-story building will house community education and administrative offices and a full-service reproductive health care clinic. It is designed to accommodate future expansion of a fourth floor for offices. The $16 million project is expected to be completed by December 2011.

Groundbreaking occurred for a 33,000-square-foot medical office building in Blaine. The $9 million project, located at state Route 65 and 109th Ave., will house the Minnesota Eye Consultants and Noran Neurological Clinic.

A new BMW dealership opened in Minnetonka. The 223,000-square-foot facility includes space for 500 vehicles, 80 work bays, and a 12-seat movie theater. BMW Minnetonka, a $30 million project, has green features such as recycled-plastic-bottle wallpaper, a reclaimed-water car wash, and a service department heated with waste oil. The Minnetonka facility employs 100 people.

Construction is on track for completion in August of the 195,000-square-foot Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex on the campus of the University of St. Thomas. The $52 million project features a new basketball and volleyball arena, aquatic center, field house, fitness center, athletic offices, and classrooms. Another project on the St. Thomas campus, a 225,000-square-foot, $66 million student center, is scheduled to begin. It will consolidate student services, meeting spaces, two dining halls, and other campus amenities. The student center is slated for completion in December 2011.

The American Craft Council, a national nonprofit educational organization, is moving its headquarters from New York to Minneapolis. The organization chose Minneapolis over nine other cities. The Craft Council will be located in 8,000 square feet of the former Grain Belt Brewery building, and it expects to employ about a half-dozen Minnesotans to replace New York staff. Since its founding in 1943, the American Craft Council has been based in New York.

DEED’s MJSP program awarded a $287,112 grant to support training for 257 employees of Northern Star Company, located in Chaska. The two-year training collaboration includes MJSP, Northern Star Co., and Dakota County Technical College (DCTC). Northern Star Co. is a subsidiary of Minnetonka-based Michael Foods, Inc., a leading food processor and distributor. Northern Star Co. is investing more than $57 million to redesign production lines, purchase new equipment, install new technology for better safety and efficiency, and train employees at their new potato-processing plant in Chaska. The new plant will employ about 257 employees. The company and DCTC will collaborate to develop onsite training to accommodate all shifts and include courses in industrial electricity, electrical controls and apparatus, and system troubleshooting.

Southern

Gustavus Adolphus College broke ground for a $30 million academic building on the site of its old football stadium in St. Peter. The project involves the construction of a 125,000-square-foot, three-story building to house the departments of communications studies, economics and management, history, psychology, and sociology and anthropology. The facility is designed with green features such as natural lighting for interior spaces, low-emitting finishes, systems that give occupants more control over light and heat comfort, a white roof for cooling efficiency in the summer, solar collectors, and bicycle storage. Ten percent of the building materials will come from recycled materials. The facility is slated for completion by September 2011.

The Mayo Clinic plans to build a 13,000-square-foot cancer center in Northfield. The $10 million outpatient cancer treatment center would serve about 200 cancer patients a year. The project is slated for completion by summer 2011.

Top