Building back north: Meet the people working to change the fortunes of north Minneapolis
North Minneapolis residents have lived for decades with cycles of economic boom and bust. Over the years, excitement over new grocery stores, coffee shops, small businesses and other pillars of neighborhood life often gave way to frustration as storefronts shuttered and food deserts grew.
The area took a hit in February when Aldi closed its grocery store at Penn and Lowry Avenues, forcing longer bus rides or walks for many residents and leading some to worry another pendulum swing, a new era of community instability, was at hand.
This time, though, a corps of professionals, many with ties to north Minneapolis, intend to rewrite the economic story of north Minneapolis. They’re making plans to invest and build in ways they say are equitable and sustainable long term.
They include entrepreneur Timothy Childs, who said he intends to raise $100 million in public and private funds to expand his four technology companies in north Minneapolis over the next two years. One company, TLC Precision Wafer Technology, counts NASA, the U.S. Air Force and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin as clients.
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Childs said he expects to create at least 300 jobs among his companies.
“I consider north Minneapolis a place of great resources and talent that is overlooked and a lot of times mischaracterized,” he said. “But when people really look into Minneapolis … I think one would have to step back and realize the north side is not only a state resource but a national resource."
The Black-owned Twin Cities-based aerospace company Ion Corp. is also expanding into north Minneapolis and expected to create 100 jobs, said Warren McLean, president of the nonprofit Northside Economic Opportunity Network (NEON).
“Successful entrepreneurs are committing resources to north Minneapolis intentionally ... which has never happened, not to my knowledge,” he said. “Particularly not to the scale that is happening, with the sophistication that's there.”
McLean said he hopes to turn north Minneapolis into a Silicon Valley for local entrepreneurs.
“We want to help change the culture. It's a change of mindset that says we have the capacity … we have the wherewithal to, and we have the creativity to create things in north Minneapolis,” he said.
‘Been through this multiple times’
Conversations about life in north Minneapolis are punctuated by stories of good times and bad.
In his teen years in the 1980s, Roger Cummings worked with young people painting murals in north Minneapolis. The gig placed him in a community where the street scene filled him with wonder and a cultural life that included the Young Brothers barbershop, an Elks Lodge and the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center, which was known for attracting drum corps from around the country.
“King’s market was on Plymouth. That was a big place that people would go. There was a graffiti wall on the back of King’s that people used to do their pieces on,” he recalled. “You would walk up and down Plymouth just to hang out just, you know, see girls, see people driving up and down the street with the nice cars,” he said. “Plymouth was popping.”
Drugs changed the area in the mid to late 1980s, said Cummings, now the chief cultural producer and co-founder of Juxtaposition Arts.
“King’s shut down … McDonald's went away … Plymouth Avenue started to kind of atrophy a little bit,” he said. “It didn't have the energy that it once had.”
Civil upheaval and riots during the late 1960s contributed to the flight of white business owners and residents. Economic disinvestment followed the exodus. Advocates say local government has sometimes been a hindrance to making things better in the decades since.
The city has poured tens of millions of dollars into public and private ventures meant to spur economic development on the north side. But challenges posed by socioeconomic disparities and crime persists in sections of north Minneapolis. For years city and business leaders have pondered a chicken-and-egg type of question: which comes first economic development or public safety?
Empty properties owned by the city or Hennepin County have been commonplace since the 1967 riots, said Kristel Porter, executive director of West Broadway Business and Area Coalition.
“You know, I'm now in my 40s … I remember being younger than 10 and seeing some of those same properties where there's nothing going on there still to this day,” she said. “I never quite understood it. And actually, I thought it was my community's problem when I was a kid, like, why can't we just get our act together?”
Porter says the goals of city programs that offer land rights have fallen short of expectations. The byzantine steps can overwhelm newcomers to the lengthy process. And the city’s attempt to help with the process by offering technical assistance courses are challenging to some who are opening their first business.
Then there’s the difficulty of obtaining a business loan from banks wary of investing in the north side. She says most of the 79 businesses along West Broadway have not relied on loans. They rely instead on saving up or using tax refunds to invest in their enterprise, Porter explained. Feasibility studies in north Minneapolis are nonstarters for some banks.
“I'm not going to get a loan, because they're going to look at the market, they're going to look at the area median income, and they're going to say, it's just not going to be profitable,” she said.
Erik Hansen, director of economic policy and development at the city agency Community Planning and Economic Development, cited the Two Percent Loan program as one that’s making a difference. That initiative, in which the city spends $2.2 million annually to absorb some of the loan risks, helps businesses obtain capital.
The agency also has a fund that helps developers and businesses in Minneapolis’s hardest hit areas to buy and own real estate, Hansen says. About 70 percent of the programs' participants are Black, Indigenous and entrepreneurs of color, he adds.
“So there's a number of projects that are on the north side that the city helped support.”
Aldi’s closure in February rekindled the trauma of past losses.
“We've been through this multiple times. And it begs the question for me, why aren't our lives valued in north Minneapolis, in the same ways they're valued in other parts of the city?” said food justice advocate DeVon Nolen. “Downtown Minneapolis has 56,000 people and four full service grocery stores. We have one for over 67,000 people.”
Food, art and jobs
Those working now to make sure north Minneapolis doesn’t end up in another economic roller coaster ride envision success on multiple fronts. Jobs are important, they say, but so are food and cultural life.
NEON will break ground in October to construct a building for its commercial kitchen and food business incubator, an investment McLean values at $18 million to $20 million. The project aims to help food entrepreneurs with the business side of launching an eatery or food truck.
The Black-led Juxtaposition Arts will hold an open house June 2 to welcome the public to its new three-and-a-half story building. The project’s costs came to about $13 million.
The nonprofit organization Appetite for Change hosts garden plots across the north side. Fruits and vegetables harvested on these plots are sold at the West Broadway Farmers Market. Another Appetite for Change program emphasizes cooking education, ideas for healthier food options.
Childs is raising funding for $100 million expansion from private and public sources. He said he will seek a grant from the Small Business Innovative Research program, a federal effort that funds innovative technology. The company is also raising equity through sales of shares.
Childs says he’s applying for funds from the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the federal law intended to boost semiconductor research and manufacturing in the United States. TLC Millimeter Wave Products have patented chips that are manufactured abroad.
“So we would like to bring that back onshore, back into Minnesota,” he said. “And that'll even bring more jobs and opportunity into Minneapolis, but also funding for us to expand.”
The talent and people of north Minneapolis are ‘tremendous,’ Childs said. He said they have been leaders in music, business and other fields. But, he said, confidently, that north siders will soon lead in high tech and artificial intelligence.
