Category Archives: Economic Development

…in Downtown Northfield? We’ve heard, among other things, an all-night diner, a 400-person capacity night club, and bike racks…but we’re sure there’s much more. The ACT (Acting in the Community Together) Center at Carleton College will be firing up their annual civic engagement series, entitled “Bursting the Bubble”, starting February 1st. The focus of theContinue reading “What do College Students Want…”

As regular readers of this blog know, the NDDC owes much to ideas explored and experiments pursued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Main Street program. From Marketing to Streetscape, the NDDC has both considered and implemented some of the recommendations coming from their headquarters in Washington, D. C. The latest National Trust ideaContinue reading “Branding Downtown Districts”

Yesterday (1/17/06) the Minneapolis City Council voted to sell a building at a $2 million loss. The reason for the decison was to get the building into the hands of a well-known restaurant developer. The Council’s hope is that David Fhima, owner of Fhima’s, LoTo and Louis XIII, will put a destination restaurant in theContinue reading “More on the Economic Power of Restaurants”

…not really, but the efforts to develop a building where creative professionals can live and work in Northfield continue. As some of you may recall, long before the Historic Middle School became vacant, the School Board had set up a Reuse Committee. This group determined that an arts-based reuse of the building would provide theContinue reading “Historic Middle School Moved Across the River”

Council Members Galen Malecha and Jim Pokorney recently approached me about the much talked about Traffic Light at 3rd Street and Highway 3. We met for the first time last week. Galen and Jim basically said they sense that a majority of community members believe that a traffic light at that intersection is important andContinue reading “New Hope for the Traffic Light at 3rd and 3”