Will fish swim in an aquarium of sky blue waters? | Minnesota Public Radio

St. Paul, Minn. — The historic Hamm’s brewery in St. Paul made beer for more than a century before it shut down 14 years ago. But it may soon find new life — as a fish farm. A St. Paul landscaper said his idea for an organic fish and produce operation is so crazy it might just work.

Driving down Minnehaha Avenue on St. Paul’s East Side, most people might pass the shuttered Hamm’s brewery and see blight. Rusty padlocks swing between the plant’s gates. Holes gape in the brew house walls where workers ripped out beer making equipment.

But David Haider?

He sees fish.

“We’re going to start with tilapia and once things are up and running, probably branch out to trout and we’ll branch out maybe into a couple other species,” Haider said.

Those fish will be farmed in 4-foot wide, 60-foot long tanks in a brewery outbuilding, just behind the hulking five-story brewhouse. The fish will swim in water from the brewery well. Racks of aquaponic produce will grow above them.

“The fish water would get pumped to the top tier, and all the vegetable roots will hang down, suspended in the nutrient rich water,” Haider said. “As the water passes through, it will feed the plants, and then the roots of the plants will also filter out the water. It’ll drop down to the next tier and so on, and by the time it gets filtered back down to the fish tanks, it will be fresh, filtered water.

Haider hopes to sell the fish and vegetables, offer some hands-on science education to neighborhood school kids and take advantage of the local food movement.

Odd as that may sound for a brewery, it’s already working in an abandoned crane factory in Milwaukee. Sweet Water Organics raises about 35,000 perch and 20,000 tilapia, along with lettuce, watercress, basil and wheatgrass.

Back in St. Paul, Haider’s efforts are a little more down to earth for now. Literally. He and his wife run Urban Nature, a small landscaping company. They and business partner Chris Ames are starting the fish farm.

They have an initial approval for $300,000 from a city-run development fund and Haider said they’re rounding up another quarter million in private funding.

St. Paul City Council President Kathy Lantry said the fish farm will be a perfect fit.

“I mean, they’re going to raise fish, so what do you need? A water source — voila, the well’s on site,” Lantry said. “They need buildings that are overbuilt, because they’re going to have giant tubs of water in a building. What sort of building is overbuilt to have liquids in them? A brewery.

It has taken a long time to see that potential. Stroh’s brewing stopped making beer there in 1997. The site has been mostly notable since for catching fire.

In it’s heyday, Hamm’s was the fifth-biggest brewer in the U.S. Its St. Paul roots date back to the Civil War.

Along with 3M and the neighboring Whirlpool factory, Hamm’s was the beating blue collar heart of the East Side. At one time, Hamm’s employed as many as 2,000 people in St. Paul.

“Back in the day, (that) was an awful lot of folks,” said Kirk Schnitker, president of the Hamm’s Club, which he founded to keep alive the memory of the historic beer and its maker.

At the mid-century height of its business, he says there were shifts running around the clock at the brewery. The Hamm family sold it in 1965.

“You know it had a long run of making Hamm’s there and Old Style and Pheiffer’s and Buckhorn and a number of other brands. And finally, Stroh’s,” Schnitker said. “The run was long, and eventually it was ended by the larger beer interests.”

Since the brewery closed, planners have pitched homes, offices and warehouse space on the site. Plans for an Asian Pacific cultural center were vetoed by then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

“We’ve been looking at reuse of these buildings. It’s difficult, because it was built as a brewery, and these are massive buildings,” said David Gontarek a planner for the city of St. Paul, which owns the southern half of the Hamm’s site.

If all goes as planned, there will be fish swimming around in some of them by March.

Official word on Ford plant closing launches 'next steps' process for St. Paul | MinnPost

Although it was inevitable, Monday’s announcement that the St. Paul Ford Motor Plant will close for good Dec. 19 brought a strong dose of finality to plant employees, city officials and neighbors in Highland Park who’ve spent the past five years trying to keep the plant alive, or at least delay its closing.

“Even though we’ve known it was coming, finally getting that date makes it real,” said Merritt Clapp-Smith, a senior planner at the city of St. Paul. “It’s an emotional piece of news.”

In addition to the work done to try to persuade Ford to keep the plant up and running, officials kept busy on Plan B and have invested tons of time preparing for the closing and ultimate reuse of the site.

The next step in the Ford Plant saga comes next month when Ford officials will hold a public meeting to outline the end game. They’ll talk about equipment removal and demolition of the buildings as the begin the long process to sell the 125-acre site.

The meeting, billed as “Next Steps After Ford Plant Closure,” is Nov. 9 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the UAW-Ford-MnSCU Training Center Auditorium,  at Ford Parkway and Mount Curve Blvd. in St. Paul.

Ford officials will discuss logistics of the shutdown and site clean up, said Janelle Tummel of the city’s Planning and Economic Development Department.

“The meeting is open to everyone and is geared toward the community, letting people know what to expect next, with specifics on timing,” she said. “People will want to know about the noise level during demolition, how loud and dusty it’s going to be, and how these things will affect the community.”

Prospect of a convention center shocks Vikings stadium watchers | StarTribune

A red circle on a map has become the latest obstacle that Vikings owner Zygi Wilf might have to overcome to win support for his proposed stadium in Arden Hills.

The circle, surrounding 120 acres next to Wilf’s planned 260-acre stadium parcel, drew gasps last week at a St. Paul Rotary luncheon when business leaders saw the label imposed on it — “Potential Convention Center Hotel.”

Ramsey County Commissioner Tony Bennett, the Vikings’ key stadium ally, said that Wilf isn’t looking to build a “major” convention center that would compete with those in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Instead, there might be a “medium-sized convention center/hotel” at the stadium site, Bennett said.

“It’s just a concept. It may change,” he added.

Within a day, Bennett and the Vikings backpedaled, saying the map passed out at the luncheon was out of date.

Team Vice President Lester Bagley, who attended the Rotary lunch and is the architect of the Vikings’ stadium effort, now says the convention center idea is dead.

“There are no plans for a convention center. We are entirely focused on the stadium component,” Bagley said Friday.

But even the possibility that Wilf entertained ideas for a convention center at what would be a state-subsidized project has left some members of the Twin Cities business and political communities stunned.

In moving the Vikings to Arden Hills, Wilf “not only would … be taking this business [the NFL franchise] from us,” Minneapolis City Council President Barbara Johnson said. “But he’d be taking convention business and using state taxes to do it. Yes, it would be bad.

“I don’t know what he’s thinking,” Johnson said.

Karolyn Kirchgesler, president of Visit St. Paul, said the Twin Cities already is unusual in having two convention centers in the same metro area.

“To add another convention center to the mix would not be prudent from an economic standpoint,” she said.

Welcome to Zygi World. 

Twin Cities Public Television will air films on waning suburbs | MinnPost

Didn’t get to that see the movies or join in the community discussion about waning inner-ring suburbs here at home as well as across the nation, or learn how they’re handling their problems?

Well, here’s the reel replay: both “The New Metropolis” and its sibling, “New Metropolis Minnesota,” will be aired on Twin Cities Public Television, tpt, starting at 8 p.m. Sunday May 1. 

For a sense of the issues and the mood, this is what “New Metropolis” filmmaker Andrea Torrice told me in a phone interview last month: 

“I’m very concerned about all the communities in America, the way we are growing and the way we are becoming more unequal, both economically and in terms of racial segregation,” Torrice said.  

Construction on portions of the Central Corridor light-rail line in downtown St. Paul is scheduled to begin March 21 | StarTribune

Construction on portions of the planned Central Corridor light-rail line in downtown St. Paul is scheduled to begin March 21, with work starting on Fourth Street between Wacouta and Broadway.

A six-block section of Fourth, between Broadway and Minnesota streets, will be closed to through traffic at various times in stages through November, with some exceptions made for access to parking facilities and for deliveries. Intersections will be closed during work on adjacent segments.

Utility and other work has been underway on the line in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The 11-mile Central Corridor line will link downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis along Washington and University avenues. It’s scheduled to begin service in 2014. The line will connect with the Hiawatha LRT line at the Metrodome station in Minneapolis and the Northstar commuter rail line at the new Target Field station.

King Tut exhibit coming to St. Paul Science Museum | Star Tribune

An exhibition featuring authentic artifacts from the tomb of King Tut is coming to the Twin Cities.

The Science Museum of Minnesota announced Wednesday that “Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs” will debut on Feb. 18. The exhibit will run through Sept. 5, 2011.

This will be the first time that the Upper Midwest has hosted artifacts from Tut’s tomb or objects belonging to the king, said Science Museum spokeswoman Kim Ramsden.

“Tutankhamun’s magic still captures the hearts of people all over the world, even though more than 85 years have passed since the discovery of his amazing tomb,” Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in a statement.

At 16,000 square feet, the Tut display will be the largest exhibition in Science Museum history.

This is going to be a pretty awesome exhibit. 

St. Paul kick-starts its future | Star Tribune

On Wednesday, Coleman stood across the street from that dusty dent and announced an initiative to jump-start the Lofts at Farmer’s Market and other stalled projects across the city. The spark will be $15 million in new local spending, which is expected to unlock more than $100 million in state, federal and private investments and create hundreds of jobs for seven projects.

Go-cart driver arrested after chase through downtown St. Paul

adambez:

Four police cars, lights on and sirens blaring, chased a man in a go-cart at top speeds of 20 mph through downtown St. Paul on Tuesday evening.

Police finally boxed him into a parking lot, chased him around some more and then shocked him twice with a stun gun before his go-cart came to a stop.

The man refused to speak to officers or give his identity. He was booked into the Ramsey County Jail under the name John Doe, his age unknown.

So…this happened.  

Curious as to just how long this chase actually lasted.