Your business week, 7/12 – 7/19
Minneapolis
International Market Square (IMS) sold for just shy of $29 million
- A group of local buyers, including Eagle Ridge Partners in Minneapolis, are now the proud owners of the 374,000 square foot design center.
- New owners are planning upgrades for the historic building, though they’ll have to be careful as the building is protected on the National Register of Historic Places.
- The IMS condos will not be included in the sale.
Speaking of upgrades, Target Center are renovations now 70% complete.
- $140 million is the price tag to turn the 28-year-old concrete box into an open, outward-looking facility.
- Pee in private: No longer will troughs be used in the men’s rooms.
- Get the full experience: www.nba.com/timberwolves
St. Paul
All mine: Discussion on potential copper mining in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) at the RiverCentre in downtown St. Paul brings out mining opponents.
- Twin Metals has plans for an expansive underground copper mine near Ely, along the Kawishiwi River.
- Opponents of the mine worry about acid mine drainage into the BWCA, as well as the potentially century long (or more) cleanup process in the pristine natural reserve after the mine closes.
- Supporters of the mine point to the 800 jobs it will bring to a struggling section of Northeast Minnesota.
- The next meeting will be in Virginia, Minnesota (in the Iron Range, much closer to where the mine would be located), where mining supporters are planning to march as a “show of force.”
Metro
Gymboree, a clothing retailer geared toward small children, is closing four Twin Cities stores, 350 nationwide.
- Gymboree joins many other mall retailers, including Macy’s and Sears, as well as smaller clothing retailers like Aeropostale, in cutbacks.
AmericInn hotel brand sold.
- Wyndham Hotel Group, based in New Jersey, paid $170 million for the midlevel hotel chain.
- AmericInn, based in Chanhassen, was founded by Jim Graves (Graves Hospitality) in 1979.
From Faribault to the White House: Faribault Woolen Mill Co., a local maker of woolen blankets, throws, etc. makes a trip to Washington, D.C. to represent Minnesota for Donald Trump’s “Made in America” week.
- The Woolen Mill is one of the last vertical woolen mills in the country, originally built in 1865.
Mink stoles? Not really. Stolen minks? Not that either. 35,000 minks were simply set loose by vandals.
- The minks were released from Lang Farms in Eden Valley, a pelt farm.
- A tragic end either way: They have been dying by thousands, unable to survive in the wilderness.
