 Ten X Ten team at Freedom Square last summer Photo Source: City of Minneapolis
Ten X Ten is a Minneapolis-based Landscape Architecture and
Urban Design Practice founded in April 2015 by Maura Rockcastle and Ross
Altheimer. Both seasoned landscape architects with years of experience,
Rockcastle and Altheimer’s vision for Ten X Ten is to create spaces that
transform communities, adapt to changes, and push the field of design into the
21st century. Ten X Ten takes an experimental approach to projects,
learning about each site through environmental, ecological and material studies
so that the outcome is authentic to the community, environment and culture that
it serves.
Before opening, Rockcastle and Altheimer worked with the Small Business Development Center
at St. Thomas through the City’s Business
Technical Assistance Program (B-TAP) who helped them draft a partnership
agreement, write a business plan, and identify startup costs. Now, Ten X
Ten has settled into a space in the North Loop and worked on several notable
projects nationwide including the Mill 19 development in
Pittsburgh, the Tri-Faith Initiative campus in Omaha, two public libraries in
Norman, Oklahoma, the Minnesota River Greenway Interpretive Plan in Dakota
County, and Freedom
Square, a temporary plaza in North Minneapolis.
Overall, Ten X Ten strives to create resilient, efficient,
and sustainable design that will support the growth and health of cities long
after being built.
 EMERGE Build Leaders graduation cohort. Source: EMERGE
Graduation ceremonies were recently held for the first cohort groups of BUILD Leaders.
City of Minneapolis Employment and Training community-based partners; American Indian OIC, in partnership with Little Earth of United Tribes (LEUT), and EMERGE are the service providers for this innovative program that focuses on violence prevention/intervention, youth development, and coalition building. Participants, ages 18-24, receive paid training in facilitation, leadership, and job skills to deliver the BUILD youth violence prevention curriculum to 9-12 year olds at various locations in Minneapolis.
 American Indian OIC/ Little Earth of United Tribes Build Leaders graduation cohort. Source: City of Minneapolis
The American Indian OIC/LEUT program incorporates construction training
in conjunction with the LEUT state funded YouthBuild program. BUILD Leaders
completed American Workshop’s 120-hour Introduction to Construction and Building
Trades that included certifications in OSHA-10, First Aid/CPR, Automated
External Defibrillator (AED) and an industry-specific credential. In addition
to working on their individual education, employment and training goals,
participants completed youth development/trauma informed care trainings, and
facilitated the culturally adapted Native curriculum to YouthCare participants.
EMERGE’s BUILD program is a six-month training and supported employment
internship focused on entry-level positions in the youth work and/or education
fields. Participants earn First Aid/CPR and Youth Intervention Programs Association
(YIPA) certifications. They also participate in EMERGE Youth Work 101, trauma
informed care trainings, and enhanced public speaking skills sessions. BUILD
Leaders facilitate the youth violence prevention curriculum at Lucy Laney
Community School.
The second BUILD Leaders cohorts started in late February and the third
cohorts are slated to begin in August.
 “Homestrech” program graduates with CLUES’ Cesar Orjuela (in tan suit in the middle). Source: CLUES
CLUES, a Minneapolis Employment and Training partner since 2005,
provides bilingual, one-on-one employment and retention services to the
Minneapolis Latino and new immigrant communities.
CLUES understands that employment and unemployment affect the entire
family and when participants succeed, so do their families. CLUES job counselors examine not only
participants’ employability factors like job skills and education level, but
also safe living, legal issues, and health to develop a comprehensive
individualized employment plan.
CLUES also offers training for those interested in customer service,
finishing trades and bricklayer pre-apprenticeships, and nursing assistant
certification.
2016 CLUES highlights include:
- More than 600 participants received job coaching and support
- 135 clients placed in jobs at an average wage of $12.95/hour
- 49 students graduated from the career training program with 35
obtaining industry recognized credentials
In addition to its robust employment and training
program, CLUES provides access to resources for health and well-being, cultural and civic engagement, and education and consulting assistance through the City’s Business Technical
Assistance Program.
 Community Connections Conference, 2015 Source: City of Minneapolis
Registration opened last week for the sixth annual Community
Connections Conference – Your Voice, Your City: CommUnity at the
Minneapolis Convention Center Saturday, April 1. The conference is free and
will go from 8 am to 3 pm. All are welcome to make their voices heard, participate
in interactive sessions, and enjoy lunch.
The Community Connections Conference
will feature an opportunity to participate in Minneapolis 2040, the City’s
Comprehensive Plan update. Minneapolis 2040 will be the City’s 20-year vision
to direct the physical development of the city into the future. Find out what’s
happened so far in the process and discuss with City staff and your neighbors
how to grow the city in health, equity and opportunity. Learn more here.
Register, find out more and watch for
updates here. Registration
will close March 24.
Community Connections Conference
8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, April 1
(Check-in starts at 7:30 a.m.)
Minneapolis Convention Center
 The new Cedar Riverside Opportunity Center Source: EMERGE
Join the grand opening community celebration for the Cedar Riverside
Opportunity Center, a one-stop shop for educational and workforce resources and
a pipeline for job opportunities. The Center will provide intake, assessment,
job search/career exploration, employment counseling, job development, job
placement, remedial education referrals and support (GED) and case management
services to youth and adult job seekers in the neighborhood.
Date: Sunday, March 12, 2017
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Location: Cedar Riverside Opportunity Center, 515 15th Avenue South,
Minneapolis
Details: The event begins at 2 p.m. with a brief program and ribbon
cutting. After the ribbon cutting, participate in building tours,
entertainment, and refreshments. The program will be held just outside of the
building, so be sure to dress for the weather.
Public parking is available in the area, but is limited. The METRO Blue Line Cedar
Riverside stop is less than two blocks from the center.
The Cedar Riverside Opportunity Center is located on the ground floor
of 515 15th Ave. S.
Due to overwhelming popularity, the City’s $25 tree program
will operate by lottery this year. 1,000 lucky winners will be able to order a
5 to 8 foot tree for $25. This includes flowering trees and several types of
fruit trees which would cost around $125 if purchased at a nursery. Residents,
businesses or nonprofits can register for the lottery here any time from March 13 to
March 20. Trees must be picked up May 20, 21 or 22 at the City of Minneapolis
Impound lot.
Since 2006, the City Trees program has provided over 12,000
trees that have been planted to help meet the City’s health and environmental goals.
In addition, there is a growing need to plant more trees due to emerald ash borers. All ash trees infected with the beetle will eventually die leading to a loss of
one-fifth of Minneapolis’ urban forests. Healthy trees are not only beautiful
and increase property values, but they help clean the air we breathe, keep the
city cooler in the summer, provide homes for wildlife, and help manage
stormwater.
 The New Utepils Brewery and taproom Source: City of Minneapolis
Utepils
Brewing, Minneapolis’s newest brewery and taproom, opened officially Feb 18th
in North Minneapolis. Utepils
(oo-tah-pilz) is a Norwegian term for “outdoor beer” especially enjoyed in the
sunshine after a cold winter. Utepils uses the spring water from onsite wells,
previously used for a century by Glenwood Inglewood, to make the beer. Special
artwork in the 150-seat taproom features new mythology, similar to Northern European
folk tales.
CPED provided
a $75,000 business development loan to Utepils to help finance the leasehold improvements and equipment,
the loan is partially forgivable if new fulltime employees are Minneapolis
residents paid a living wage. Total project costs were over $3.7 million. The
brewing capacity will make this the sixth largest brewery in Minnesota when
fully operational.
Utepils
will host food trucks and is developing an outdoor beer garden in its parklike
setting near Bassett Creek. The brewery is located at 225 Thomas Av. N., south
of Glenwood Avenue.
STEP-UP, the
City of Minneapolis internship program for young adults ages 14-21, is on the way to another great summer.
The STEP-UP 2017 application period closed on February 10 with over
3,700 applications submitted. All the
young people who are eligible for the program have been invited to training –
over 3,400 of them! The youth have received
email and letter notifications with their training schedule and other important
information. Training takes place on
Saturdays from now until mid-April.
Prospective interns must complete the training process to be eligible
for a position. Positions are never
guaranteed, but over 80 percent of students who complete training are placed
into a position.
Since its inception in 2004, STEP-UP has created nearly 24,000
meaningful internships for youth, helping young people to gain 21st century
skills, build professional connections, explore career interests, and begin the
path to educational and career success.
On February 14, Mayor Betsy Hodges joined over 250 Twin Cities business
leaders for breakfast at the Target Field Metropolitan Club to kick off the
employer recruitment season for summer 2017 STEP-UP
Achieve youth employment program (a part of the City of Minneapolis
STEP-UP program).
At the event, Twin Cities employers pledged over 400 paid summer
internships toward a goal of 750 internships.
STEP-UP is seeking businesses, public agencies and nonprofits interested
in employing interns in 2017. Employers can sign up here to hire
interns until March 31 for summer 2017.
STEP-UP not only changes young lives but can also help businesses in
countless ways. Interns can increase an organization's productivity, energy and
diversity, providing rich payback for the organization’s investment of time and
training. In the most recent survey of STEP-UP employers, 93% reported that
their intern made a valuable contribution to the workplace.
Fifteen Twin Cities chefs, bakers and restaurants have been named semifinalists in the 2017 James Beard Foundation awards.
The semifinalist ballot goes out to a pool of 500-plus voters, including critics, writers, editors, culinary educators and past chef and restaurant award winners. (Releasing the semifinalist roster to the public is a relatively recent phenomenon; until 2008, the list was a not-so-closely-guarded secret.)
For the complete list of semifinalists, go here.
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