NDC Lays Out Vision for Global Marketplace

Small Businesses Will Support Ethnic, Economic Diversity in Midtown Exchange

Updated 04/2004—With Allina's decision to move its corporate headquarters to the Midtown Exchange, Ryan Companies has landed a big fish in its redevelopment plans for the former Sears site. But the developer says that small business will provide some of the critical qualities needed to make the project a commercial success.

As part of a richly blended redevelopment scheme for the mammoth building, Ryan has turned to the St. Paul-based Neighborhood Development Center (NDC) to create the Global Marketplace, the largest public market around and an incubator for local entrepreneurship. The market will open to Lake Street, providing an international commercial gateway to the Midtown Exchange.

Ryan’s Challenge
In January the City of Minneapolis awarded Ryan Companies exclusive development rights to the former Sears site on Lake Street. Ryan now has six months to produce a development agreement that meets a range of economic and social goals defined by the city.

Rick Collins, Vice President of Development for Ryan, says the stakes for all concerned have never been higher.

“We're talking about the redevelopment of the biggest building in the city, plus adjacent sites, at the intersection of four challenged neighborhoods, with myriad uses and stakeholders and investors. The cost will go over $150 million. I think it's fair to say that this is the greatest challenge to date for Ryan Companies and the most complex infill planning initiative for our friends at the city and county.

“The Midtown Exchange will have housing, commerce, professional office, hotel, recreation and multi-modal transit. This diversity is the key to our success. We have neighbors all around us, and we have local government with very large hopes for this project in terms of creating economic opportunity. There are a whole lot of people who want to see the Midtown Exchange succeed on all fronts. This is a big task, and getting it done will be a total team effort.”

Thinking “Globally,” Selling Locally
Ryan's development team includes the NDC, which for 10 years has provided training, lending and technical assistance to budding entrepreneurs in the inner cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Largely below the radar of news headlines, the St. Paul based NDC has prepared 2,200 local entrepreneurs, 320 of whom are now in business. Working with 18 community and ethnic groups, NDC has helped its graduates command a combined payroll estimated at $5 million.

The NDC will build “an International themed, owner-operated, fresh and prepared food global marketplace on the first floor of the Midtown Exchange. Vendors would offer fresh foods and craft items such as tortillas, polish sausages, sushi, cheese, and meat.” To supply these goods, NDC will stock the 80,000-square-foot Global Marketplace with 60–70 stores, ethnic groceries, restaurants and stalls.

Mihailo Temali is NDC's director and a veteran of promoting street-level entrepreneurship in the Twin Cities. His 20 years of involvement also includes the dual role of president of Western Initiatives for Neighborhood Development (WIND), a subsidiary to Saint Paul's Western Bank. He said that the Global Marketplace presents the NDC with its largest and most publicized opportunity for tightly focused, community-based economic development.

“The average NDC alumni business has created 2.8 jobs in the Twin Cities,” said Temali. “Most of these jobs are held by neighborhood residents. We stress the fact that these people are visible role models in their communities.

“The Midtown Exchange is in an Empowerment Zone. It needs local success stories, needs better services, and now, instead of the jobs and the stores developing way outside the area, we have the chance to put them right in the heart of the area,” said Temali.

Linking Large and Small Business
“Vendors and customers are both eager to provide what the other one needs. What's been missing is the venue, and now we can create that venue. It's like we did with our partners at Mercado Central, it's like what we're doing with partners at Antiques Minnesota. But at the Global Marketplace the scope is bigger, and it'll be much more in the public eye. People will be living and working above it, beside it, passing by every day.

“It's a great setting to incubate and grow local business, and we bring a talent for business development that makes the most of local resources. The Midtown Exchange will place emerging businesses in an amazing proximity with other successful small businesses and the biggest employers around.”

More information on the Midtown Exchange: www.midtowncommunityworks.org/exhange.