Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Large-Scale Food News: Kowalski’s Coming to Southdale; Eat Street 2.0?
The area around Southdale Center has been built up as a glitzy lifestyle district over the past few years, with the additions of high-end apartments, the hulking new Life Time Fitness, and Restoration Hardware’s only Minnesota outpost. The Edina mall’s long-vacant Herberger’s will host the next entrant: Kowalski’s Market announced Wednesday that it’ll fill the 34,000-square-foot ground-floor space. “There’ve been rumors in the market for some time, but it’s now official,” Southdale PR rep Bonni Pear tells us. “This is another important step in the progressive transformation of Southdale to an upscale, mixed-use lifestyle center.” The trusty, non-fancy Cub Foods across the street is in for the fight of its life come 2024.
In other jumbo food news: Developer Sherman Associates is planning a $400 million “dining district” in downtown Minneapolis, Bring Me the News reports. Annoyingly named “Harmonia,” the project will stretch for an entire city block near the intersection of S. Washington Avenue & and 3rd Avenue S. Chef David Fhima will help realize the food offerings, though details remain slim at this point. We know the East Town project will feature three mixed-use buildings, one of which is set to reach 25 stories high. (The incoming apartments are advertised as “mixed-income and market-rate”—aka “fucking expensive.”) Construction won’t wrap up until 2027.
U Student Group Demands On-Campus Abortion Clinics, Is RIght to Do So
MPR News reports that students are calling for the U of M to establish abortion clinics on its campuses around the state. The University of Minnesota chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) has been phoning and emailing U leaders since May, when the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked. “I think the position that we’re kind of taking is, yes, abortion is legal for the time being,” member Gillian Rath said. “Yes, we are still a sanctuary state. But how can we be the most accessible that we can be for the people living here and for the states around us who don’t have the same privileges?” What good is a right, after all, if you can’t exercise it? The University has not yet acknowledged the students’ demands.
What Are the DFL’s Transportation Plans? We’re Glad You Asked.
We’ve already heard a bunch about the DFL agenda in other policy areas, but what does our trifecta-holding party have in mind for transportation? At the Minnesota Reformer today, H. Jiahong Pan has the details, and you can expect a bunch of goodies to be proposed, especially for us city folk. Some things the DFL will seek more of: fast buses like the new D Line in Minneapolis, passenger rail, sidewalks, and bike lanes. Another priority is to increase oversight of the Met Council, following their inept management of the green line extension. Much of the DFL’s car-related asks will concern safety improvements and fixing existing infrastructure. And there’s a whole lot more to read about in Pan’s story.
Twin Cities Pride Fest 2023 Announces Big(ish) Changes
If you were at TC Pride last year, then you know that it was hella crowded in Loring Park. What began as a 25-person protest along Nicollet Mall in 1973 is now a three-day mega-event attended by over 400,000 people who spend their time at the gathering’s concerts, sports tourneys, hours-long, never-ending parade, and afterparties. So this year, Pride will be expanding, taking over two parks: Loring and Parade. For those unfamiliar, Parade Park is the athletic field just south of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. At last Saturday’s “Halfway to Pride” event at Midtown Global Market, organizers also announced that 2023’s fest, scheduled for June 23-25, will also offer more food courts, more performance stages, a youth area, a Wine Dabbler closer to go with the Beer Dabbler opener, and extended hours on Saturday (hang till 7 p.m.).
