Minnesota Business Developments

By Rhonda Mix - rhonda.mix@state.mn.us
November 2009

Northern

A-1 Automotive & Transmission Repair has moved and expanded to a new facility at 2627 16th Avenue South in Moorhead. The company built a new state-of-the-art, 8,000-square-foot shop that is twice the size of its former location. The building is heated with waste oil and uses high-efficiency lighting and a high-tech security system. The company’s expansion also includes an increase in its workforce from 5 to 8 employees.

A wind power company, Juhl Wind Inc., headquartered in Woodstock, Minn., has begun construction of a $40 million wind farm near Hoffman in Grant County. The project, which will include 10 wind turbines that generate 20 megawatts of energy, is expected to be operational in early 2010. Granite Falls-based Fagen, Inc. is the contractor for the construction phase of this project.

Central

A Sears store has reopened in Cambridge after closing last August. Under new ownership, the store has a completely new look inside and a new customer service center that allows customers to make purchases online without incurring a charge for shipping and handling.

A new business, Rocktown Music, has opened in St. Cloud. The full-service music store sells new, used and vintage musical instruments, and it repairs electronics and instruments. The facility provides rooms for recording and lessons for any instrument.

Twin Cities Metro

iQor Inc., a New York City-based company that specializes in providing call center services for companies around the world, has opened a new call center in Plymouth that will bring hundreds of new jobs to the community. The 49,000-square-foot facility at 12755 Highway 55 in the western Twin Cities suburb has a capacity for more than 1,000 employees. About 550 employees from a previous iQor call center in St. Louis Park have moved to the new facility. The company expects to hire an additional 60 people by the end of the year and nearly 100 more workers next year. iQor said that Plymouth was chosen for the company expansion because the Twin Cities area “has been a terrific market for us and will continue to be a key part of our global footprint.”

Construction has begun on the $18 million renovation of the Shubert Theater on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. The project will create more than 100 construction jobs and dozens of permanent jobs. Roseville-based McGough Cos. is the general contractor for the project. The renovation project received $2 million in stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Nearly 300 employees at Fairview Health Services in the Twin Cities will receive certification training for sterile processing of medical equipment and supplies under a $178,530 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. The funding was awarded through the agency’s Minnesota Job Skills Partnership. Anoka Technical College will provide training in the three-year program.

Trader Joe’s opened a new store in Minnetonka by the Ridgedale Shopping Center. With stores already in St. Louis Park, Maple Grove, St. Paul, and Woodbury, this is the fifth Trader Joe’s store to open in the Twin Cities. The Minnetonka location will open daily at 8 a.m., an hour earlier than the other Trader Joe’s stores. The small-format grocer sells primarily its own brand of foods, along with bakery items, produce, meat, cheese, wine, and beer.

Honeywell received an $11.4 million grant from the Department of Energy to develop a peak pricing response system that reduces energy use during periods of peak demand. The grant, which was awarded under the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will be used by Honeywell’s Automation and Control Systems division in Minneapolis.

Vescio’s restaurant is opening a new restaurant in downtown Minneapolis. Named Vescio’s Trattoria, the new restaurant will be on the skyway level at the corner of Marquette Avenue and South Sixth Street. 

Southern

A privately held cheese and food ingredient company in LeSueur, Davisco Foods, is expanding its existing lactose production to add pharmaceutical lactose production lines. Davisco is partnering with a German dairy company, Meggle Group, which is headquartered in Wasserburg, Germany, to produce pharmaceutical lactose in the United States. The product is used in applications such as infant formula, filler in capsules, and as a carrier for the active ingredient in inhalers.

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