Biz Buzz

Just a quick note to let any readers of my former Herald business blog, Bizz Buzz, know that the blog has returned in a new form. After some time away from the business beat the Grand Forks Herald, I have returned to my former duties and I will resume blogging about local business news.

The Buzz, the reincarnation of Bizz Buzz, with some changes and a new look thanks to some advances Forum Communications has made to its Area Voices platform, has just launched. I’ll be blogging about local business news and other topics of interest in the local community.

Check out the new blog and join the conversation.

   The newest Space Aliens Grill and Bar location in Grand Forks, ND, is scheduled to open a week from Monday, on January 26. Space Aliens has seven locations in North Dakota and Minnesota.

   When I drive by, I have been curiously watching the development of the building as it is transformed from a Boston’s Gourmet Pizza, which closed last year after the building was purchased to make way for Space Aliens. The former Boston’s building is being renovated and added on to, but I’m not exactly sure how it will look and how they will change it to include some of the outer-space themed architectural elements that make Space Aliens restaurants stand out. Here’s a press release I received this morning about the Space Aliens opening:

Space Aliens Grill and Bar Set to Open on January 26

The new Space Aliens Grill & Bar at 3250 32nd Avenue SW in Grand Forks, will open to the public on Monday, January 26. It is the newest of seven Space Aliens locations in North Dakota and Minnesota.

"We think this is a huge opportunity," said Abe Sakak, Chief Operations Officer, who has been associated with the Space Aliens brand since 2006, "Space Aliens presence in Grand Forks will provide the residents with more family dining choices as well as job opportunities within the community."

More than 80 full-time and part-time employees will be hired to service the restaurant’s total capacity of over 200 guests.

"The Grand Forks area and Space Aliens Grill & Bar are a perfect match," says Karsan McGillicuddy, general manager of the new restaurant. "Grand Forks is a great city of wonderful, friendly people. We are confident that our guests will love what we have to offer, and we’re anticipating great success for this restaurant."

The new Space Alien’s Grill and Bar will open at 11 a.m. seven days a week. The restaurant serves award-winning barbecue ribs, gourmet roasted pizza, giant stuffed baked potatoes and a large selection of sandwiches, salads and appetizer items.

"We have something for everyone on our menu," says McGillicuddy, "and we especially cater to children with our Galaxy Games arcade and Area 51 room for birthday parties."

   Just a quick note to let you know that I have set up my new blog Prairie Pulse, which serves as the first blog in the history of Prairie Business magazine. Late last year I reluctantly shut down Biz Buzz after moving from a business reporter at the Grand Forks Herald to editor of Prairie Business. Feel free to check out Prairie Pulse. I hope you like it. I also added a link from the blog to an online survey to see what readers think of Prairie Business magazine, so feel free to also check it out and let us know what you think of the publication.

   The new blog will be a little bit different than Biz Buzz, which focused mainly on Grand Forks-area business news, particularly news regarding changes to stores and restaurants in the Grand Forks area. The new blog will continue to focus on business news, but will have a bigger footprint, representing Prairie Business’ readership, which includes all of North Dakota and South Dakota and part of Minnesota. It will also focus more on the economy and specific industries like energy and agriculture that help drive the regional economy. There will still be some retail news, but there will be less individual store/restaurant/shopping mall news. 

   Thanks for all the kind words that were expressed by readers of my last post. Unless something changes, this will likely be my final post on Biz Buzz. Thank you for reading and please check out Prairie Pulse and give it a chance as I slowly build it up.

   I regret to report that I will no longer be contributing to the Biz Buzz blog. I started the blog a year ago and I enjoyed building it up and creating a healthy dialogue about local business news. Unfortunately I do not have the time to continue to work on Biz Buzz since I am no longer a business reporter for the Grand Forks Herald. In addition, much of the blog’s content came as a result of information I learned through my beat responsibilities at the Herald. I have started a new job as editor of Prairie Business, a monthly magazine published by the Herald that covers business news and trends in North Dakota, South Dakota and western Minnesota.

   It is my hope that editors and reporters at the Herald will at some point continue to post on the blog. I’m sorry that I will no longer be able to update the blog.

   UPDATE (1/5/09): I have started a business blog at Prairie Business, though it will focus more broadly on business issues affecting the entire three-state region and will have less emphasis on Grand Forks retail news. Thanks for reading my blog.

– Ryan Schuster

   After avoiding most of the ill effects of a struggling national economy and the roller coaster financial markets, it appears that the local area is finally feeling some of the effects of the national economy’s struggles. While the local area is still believed to be in better shape than the rest of the nation, we may face some more layoffs and minor contraction the rest of this year and next year. The long-term effects are not expected to be extreme locally, but falling oil and commodity prices don’t appear to be good signs for the state’s oil and agriculture industries.

   Earlier this week Cirrus Design Corp. laid off 30 workers at its Grand Forks plant less than two months after the company laid off 29 employees at the plant. Including layoffs at its larger plant in Duluth, Cirrus has laid off about 20 percent of its work force since September. The Cirrus layoffs on the heels of the closing of the North American Foods (or RDO) plant and J.R. Simplot laying off 30 workers in August. Pugsley’s in Devils Lake and Motor Coach Industries’ Pembina plant have also had recent layoffs.

   The recent layoffs are mitigated by the fact that there are more jobs than takers (more than 1,000 unfilled jobs in Grand Forks area, more than 14,000 unfilled jobs statewide). While some have questioned the quality of jobs and salaries and benefits being offered, Job Service North Dakota officials say there are good jobs out there and that those being laid off appear to be often landing in jobs that fit their experience with comparable salaries.

   What do you think of the local economy?

    Darcy’s Cafe on North Washington Street in Grand Forks reopened today under new management after being closed for about a month (an update to an item in my previous post). Former UND hockey player Paul Murphy will manage the cafe and said he is in the process of purchasing it from the Fonder family (the transaction could be completed by early 2009). In the meantime Murphy is leasing the space and will be running the cafe along with two other employees with part-time help from his wife and mother.

    Darcy Fonder, who owned the Bronze Boot and Darcy’s Cafe, died in August 2007. Since Fonder’s death, his family has run both businesses with son Terry Fonder overseeing operations at the Bronze Boot and hiring managers to run Darcy’s Cafe. The Bronze Boot will not be affected by the changes to Darcy’s Cafe and will remain open under its current ownership.

    Murphy said he didn’t expect much to change at Darcy’s Cafe and that he plans to run it "for the long run." He said he will attempt to attract more UND students to the cafe with its affordable prices. Starting today, the cafe will be open from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. After Thanksgiving it will also be open on Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

    What do you think of the change in management and pending ownership change? Are you relieved that Darcy’s Cafe has reopened? What makes Darcy’s Cafe unique?

    Just a few quick notes. I’ve been busy lately and I’m just getting around to these (I hope to have more for these in the Herald sometime this week):

– The TCBY/Great American Cookie shop in the food court at Columbia Mall closed earlier this month. The mall’s general manager declined comment about the reasons for the closing. No word on what will replace TCBY in the food court or when that might happen. My guess is the mall will add one or more food court tenants by the end of 2009 and will attempt to fill out the food court to coincide with the future renovation of the Target space (no further details have been released on that yet).

– Darcy’s Cafe on North Washington Street in Grand Forks has closed. A sign on the door of the popular cafe said it is closed "until further notice" and directs customers to eat at the Bronze Boot. I hear Darcy’s Cafe will soon reopen under new management, but I don’t have any details confirmed yet.

– I wrote about this but never got around to blogging on it, the Beyond Juice fruit smoothie and sandwich shop by Ralph Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks opened earlier this month. A new teen and junior resale clothing shop called indigo also opened nearby on Aug. 19 in the former Curves space near Jimmy Johns. The new resale clothing shop will hold a grand opening on Friday and Saturday.

    The annual economic impact of UND’s student body on the Grand Forks metro area is an estimated nearly $183 million, according to UND’s student senate. The estimate includes the impact of UND students attending classes on campus during the nine-month school year.

    Student expenditures during the nine-month period, including child care, auto payments, groceries, shopping, entertainment, dining out, gas, textbook and supplies costs and electronic communications, total an estimated $101.7 million each year. According to the report, the student body also holds more than 5,000 jobs in the community and another 4,300 jobs on campus, further contributing to the economic impact numbers. Of course the true economic impact of UND on the local area and region is much greater if all the jobs and salaries of UND employees, not just students, spin-off companies, contracts with local companies, tax revenues, state and federal funding, impact of UND home athletic events on the economy, etc. were taken into consideration.

    How big of an economic impact do you think UND has on the Grand Forks area? What would Grand Forks be without the university? It seems that UND has a much bigger economic, image and cultural impact on Grand Forks than NDSU has on Fargo. How much of a role can UND play in Grand Forks’ continued growth and the further diversification of the local economy?

   Preliminary plans for revitalizing and remaking the downtown areas of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks into a more cohesive and vibrant city center continued to evolve Wednesday during public input and design sessions with downtown leaders and planners, the GF/EGF metropolitan planning organization, consultants and the public.

   None of the plans have been finalized or are official yet, but ideas refined on Wednesday included adding a scaled-down grocery store and pharmacy for those living downtown, putting a boutique hotel in the St. John’s Block or Griffith building downtown at North Third Street and DeMers Avenue, building a bicycle and pedestrian bridge over the Red River replacing a bridge that was torn down after the 1997 flood (its support still stands next to the Sorlie bridge). Other concepts included adding row houses, stacked flat apartments, townhomes and mixed-use residential and commercial renovations or new buildings in each city. Some of the ideas included tearing down the Civic Auditorium site and adding a grocery store and apartments to the area as part of a large re-use of the area and several nearby empty lots.

   Other ideas included increased streetscaping and green areas along University Avenue, better connecting UND to downtown and a similar plan for between North Third Street and North Fourth Street and Gateway Drive, eliminating one-ways and making them into tree-lined two-way thoroughfares with better bike access, tying downtown streets into the Greenway. A coordinating downtown agency responsible for recruiting and retaining businesses, branding and marketing, enhanced security, event coordination (but not planning the actual events), managing parking and maintaining public areas. The process will continue with a more fleshed-out preliminary plan drafted, which will then go to each city’s city council and would require each city to update their comprehensive city plans, which could happen by early 2009.

   Here are some additional recommendations and findings from an August report prepared by Minneapolis-based consultant Maxfield Research Inc.:

– Add an approximately 40,000-50,000-square-foot grocery/pharmacy complex with additional dedicated parking after additional housing units are added, creating enough demand

– Tear down the Civic Auditorium and re-use the real estate for another project because re-using the facility would be inefficient

– Downtown area is also lacking garbage containers, unique draws, a deli, more retail shops and specialty and niche stores, more restaurants, more entertainment options, a post office, more bike racks, more police and foot patrols, need to get visitors to use parking ramps more (deal with perceived, not actual, parking shortage)

– Over the next 12 years downtown can support up to 98,000 square feet of additional goods and services retail and 41,000 square feet of more destination and specialty goods and services retail space through 2020. No new office space is needed, but existing stock of 102,000-106,000 vacant square feet should be filled or redeveloped. Demand over next 12 years can support up to 95 for-sale multi-family housing units, 223 rental units and 49 for sale/79 market rate senior housing units.

– The Griffith building could be reused for a boutique hotel, residential or office use, but a significant amount of window space would need to be added to the building

   What do you think of the updated/preliminary ideas for remaking downtown Grand Forks/East Grand Forks? Do you think the plans will actually happen? Of the different options, which ones are you the most interested in seeing happen? Are there things discussed that you think wouldn’t work?

    About two thirds of the nation’s largest 381 metropolitan areas are in local recessions with another one in five at risk, according to Moody’s Economy.com. Despite the stock market’s recent roller coaster ride making locals nervous about their retirement savings and the future, the local economy continues to churn along. Check out the bottom above heat map of metro areas whose economies are growing (Grand Forks and Bismarck) and the top map showing economies in recession or at risk of slipping into recession-like conditions (Fargo, Minneapolis, Duluth, St. Cloud). Here’s a New York Times story about the the haves and have nots.

    Our local regional economy tends to be more insulated from the national economy because of our dependence on agriculture, energy and we have been helped by a strong flow of Canadian shoppers (although their exchange rate recently took a hit). But tightening credit markets could eventually have a local impact and continued drops in gas prices (while good for consumers) don’t necessarily bode well for the oil patch in the western part of the state, which has some impact on the local economy. The local Salvation Army also reports some at the low end of the economic spectrum are hurting more and asking for more assistance (presumably as rising consumer prices are pinching their pocketbooks). A local real estate official recently told me that for a variety of factors, including land and materials costs, it is not possible to build a $100,000 new house anymore.

    What do you think? Do you think Grand Forks’ economy is strong? Are our open unfilled jobs a product of a strong economy or are they too low-paying with too low benefits for working families? How difficult is it to make ends meet for poorer workers in Grand Forks?