Over the last year and a half, St. Paul civic and business leaders have frequently commented on a growing number of commercial vacancies along the Grand Avenue business district as a number of longtime restaurants and retail establishments have either closed or relocated. The loss of high-profile businesses, particularly near Victoria Crossing, has led many
Public Project, but Private Property Owner Pain
In case you missed it, WCCO ran a story the other night about a small business owner who has been displaced through condemnation of her property by the massive, two-billion dollar Southwest Light Rail project. The business owner said she was promised by the project’s sponsor, the Metropolitan Council, that she would be “made whole.”
Construction Liens Must be Protected Early – Sometimes Within Weeks of Starting a Job
This is the second in our series on protecting the right to payment in the construction industry. In the first of our series we set the stage for using construction lien rights to enable the credit that runs the construction industry and as a form of security for payment. Those lien rights are not self-executing,
Mayo Expands Beyond Bricks and Mortar to Reach Consumers: Interview with Jim Yolch, Global Business Solutions
At each of three campuses, located in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida, Mayo Clinic is busy expanding hospital, clinic and treatment facilities. These building projects are designed to offer leading approaches in medicine, centered on diagnosis and treatment of difficult diseases – the key to Mayo’s worldwide reputation as one of the top providers of
Minneapolis’s Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance is Failing to Make Gains
When the Minneapolis City Council adopted its inclusionary zoning ordinance, together with its Unified Housing Policy, in late 2018 there was optimism that the ordinance would result in the creation of much needed affordable housing in the city. The ordinance mandates a minimum percentage of 10-20 percent of units within multifamily buildings be affordable where
Minneapolis Piles Notice Requirements on State’s New Wage Theft Laws
The Minnesota Legislature passed sweeping new amendments to statutes which create criminal penalties for the failure to pay wages and impose requirements for employers (including contractors) to document the terms of employment with their employees. The new amendments took effect July 1, 2019. Then, on August 8, Minneapolis passed an ordinance, essentially piggybacking on the