Your business week, 10/11 – 10/17
JetBlue will soon serve MSP Airport.
- Flights from MSP to Boston will begin in May: Three nonstop fights daily to Boston Logan International Airport.
- JetBlue is a low-cost airline, and the 6th largest airline in the country. It is the largest carrier at Boston Logan, an increasingly popular destination.
- MSP has been courting JetBlue for years. They now have their wish, with hope of expansion. Champagne for everyone.
Minneapolis
Iconic music venue Triple Rock Social Club is closing its doors.
- Serving drinks since 1998, and music since 2003, the venue is one of the most popular in the Twin Cities for punk rock, hip hop, metal, and other alternative music acts.
- It got weird at the Triple Rock, in the best way possible.
- The fans are active. The stage is booked. Drinks are flowing So why are they closing? Nobody seems to know.
- You can enjoy music until Thanksgiving.
And, after a much shorter history, progressive-wage restaurant Byte is also closing, in downtown Minneapolis.
- Byte opened less than a year ago (about 8 months).
- Employees at Byte were making $15/hr plus benefits and vacation. The idea for the restaurant was based around a frustration with the lack of adequate pay for restaurant employees.
- Minneapolis has since passed a city-wide $15/hr minimum wage hike. Target is still on track to do it first, however, and hopefully will better results than Byte. Read more: $15/hr for Target employees, four years ahead of its home city.
Bigger pay, yes, but smaller stores: Target opens up a third small-scale store, this time in Uptown.
- The stores, formerly called “Express” stores, of which there is already one in Dinkytown and St. Paul’s Highland Park, offer a smaller selection (obviously) of products, home goods, apparel based on the neighborhood in which its located (e.g. school supplies in Dinkytown).
- The small stores are about 20,000ft2; a City Target is around 80,000, Target at 135,000, and Super Target at 175,000.
Jamf software sold to Vista Equity Partners.
- Jamf develops software that manages Apple products for businesses.
- San Francisco-based VEP is a private equity and venture capital firm with a focus on tech/software startups.
- Jamf is expected to stay in Minneapolis after the deal. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
St. Paul
You’ll soon be able to live at the First National Bank Building.
- About 170,000ft2 of the 32-story skyscraper will be converted into market-rate living spaces.
- This will be the first time anyone will live in the iconic tower, and continues the housing trend in downtown St. Paul of converting older space, most of which not built for housing, into housing.
Plans for downtown ice palace melt after costs get too hot.
- Planned in conjunction with the 2018 Super Bowl, the ice palace would be the first full-sized palace since 2004.
- The Saint Paul Festival and Heritage foundation was unable to secure the funds, ranging from $5 million to $15 million, to build and maintain the structure.
- The St. Paul Winter Carnival will run a week longer than normal, however, from January 25 through February 10, to accommodate football fans.
Tech in St. Paul? Maybe: Why St. Paul’s push to become a tech hub isn’t so farfetched
Metro
Aramark buys AmeriPride for a cool $1,000,000,000.
- Minnetonka-based AmeriPride rents uniforms and linens. This is an industry in which Philadelphia-based hospital, university, and government facility food service giant Aramark is looking to expand.
Beyond
Like saying whatever you want on Twitter? Don”t work at the New York Times. A new set of rules drastically reduces what its journalists can do with their social media accounts. Read more: New York Times goes Big Brother on journalists’ social media accounts
