Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Sept. 16
Company’s move downtown a boost for Minneapolis
A Minnesota-based Fortune 1000 company with a 100-year history in the state is moving its headquarters from Shoreview to downtown Minneapolis.
Deluxe Corp.’s decision to relocate about 525 employees provides a much-needed boost to Minnesota’s largest and most valuable business district at the end of a summer of turmoil.
The move indicates confidence in the future of downtown Minneapolis despite increased crime and demonstrations that sometimes devolved into looting and vandalism.
In addition, downtown businesses have suffered since COVID-19 struck in March, with an estimated 85% to 90% of employees working remotely.
The convergence of negative events prompted the Minneapolis Downtown Council to warn that some companies wanted to leave the city and others that were considering locating downtown were having second thoughts.
In addressing those issues on Monday, Deluxe CEO Barry McCarthy expressed welcome confidence in the city’s ability to reclaim its vitality for workers and residents. He said he watched with “sadness” as some of those problems unfolded, but that Deluxe wanted to be “part of the solution.”
“Moving to downtown Minneapolis is an exciting next step, helping accelerate our transformation while deepening our community commitment,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Our new headquarters will offer our employee-owners access to everything downtown offers, including walkable amenities, robust public transportation, warm hospitality venues, engaging entertainment and a spirit of innovation and optimism.”
To help attract the company from Shoreview, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development provided a $1 million forgivable loan, DEED Commissioner Steve Grove told an editorial writer. According to a spokesperson for Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Deluxe received no financial assistance from the city.
Deluxe has already sold its current 314,000-square-foot headquarters in Shoreview to an Indianapolis-based developer. Its new office downtown will have a much smaller footprint. The business-technology company is building out space inside the 801 Marquette building, previously the home of TCF Financial Corp.
Deluxe signed a 16-year lease for 95,000 square feet and will occupy the top two floors of the 801 building as well as one in the connected tower. Construction is expected to be complete by fall 2021. Employees will continue to work remotely until then.
For decades, Deluxe has been almost synonymous with personalized check printing and business forms. However, as more and more financial transactions are done electronically, the company diversified to now offer a mix of small-business services.
Frey noted that the announcement from Deluxe came on the same day that the federal government authorized full funding of the Southwest light-rail line from downtown to Eden Prairie.
“This is a really big deal,” he said. “It signals a transformation of our downtown. It signals renewal. It signals a whole lot of momentum that we have at this moment.”
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The Free Press, Mankato, Sept. 15
Wildfires show that action needed on climate change
The coronavirus pandemic overshadows many other issues, including climate change.
The catastrophic wildfires raging across the west provide a sobering clarity about the price the country and globe will pay because climate change hasn’t been taken seriously enough.
Oregon, California and Washington have seen historic wildfires that burn faster and farther than ever before and already have claimed dozens of lives.
Many recent studies have linked bigger wildfires in the country to global climate change caused by burning coal, oil and gas.
Western states, in particular, have seen more severe droughts and high winds that fuel wildfires.
Governors and residents there see firsthand how the change in climate is having devastating consequences. Worse, they know it will become more common and likely even worse in the years ahead.
California had its hottest August on record including record-setting heat in Death Valley. Thousands of lightning strikes have set off hundreds of fires.
Oregon has seen long-term drought and more wild weather in recent years. Typically about 500,000 acres burn each year in the state, but flames already have consumed more than 1 million acreThe environmental and human damage caused by climate change isn’t confined to any one part of the country or the world. Here in southern Minnesota the change in weather patterns can’t be ignored. Warmer winters and more frequent fierce storms have become the norm.
Warmer oceans are fertile grounds for more intense hurricanes. Rising sea levels across the globe will displace millions of people, causing economic disaster and political turmoil, increasing the likelihood of more wars.
While climate change is intensifying, America’s response to it has weakened rather than improved. President Donald Trump always has denied human-driven climate change, while championing more oil and coal use, reducing vehicle fuel efficiency goals and pulling the country out of the Paris Climate Accord.
The horrific effects of climate change are and will be unleashed on people of all political leanings. If ever there was an issue that should create bipartisan efforts, it is to make the sacrifices needed to reduce climate change before it passes the tipping point.
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St. Cloud Times, St. Cloud, Sept. 11
Pandemic has taught us to prioritize rural broadband
Way back in 2012, a Times reporter did a multi-part series about the hot new topic: rural broadband.
Eight years later, say, in February 2020, nothing could have felt more mundane. The digital train arrived, we all got aboard, it was better in the cities, life goes on.
Until it didn’t.
We are a long way from learning all the lessons this pandemic has for us. But about this, there is no question: Access to reliable, high-speed data networks is the great equalizer. In these unprecedented times, it’s the difference between learning and earning - or not.
When the virus arrived in Minnesota, the workplace and the classroom changed in the blink of an eye. Decent internet service became the key tool for keeping workers productive, or even employed, and connected students to their teachers and classmates.
Less discussed but perhaps just as important was the internet’s ability to deliver services like a doctor visit online, a counseling session, a visit with an aging parent in a nursing home, a music performance or a virtual happy hour with coworkers. The network’s most tragic job has been connecting families to seriously ill or dying patients quarantined in hospitals.
But back to the economy.
As companies whose workforces were well-equipped for remote work sent their teams home, a defining factor of success became the speed and reliability of the data stream to their workers’ homes. As anyone who has lived through 6 months of video meetings knows, that speed and reliability leaves something to be desired, even in sizable communities.
Workers in smaller communities or deeply rural areas, where great internet may be missing, have been at a disadvantage. Same for students at all education levels - when everything goes online, you need great internet just to keep up, and not everyone can get it. That’s a lesson of the pandemic.
But the pandemic won’t last forever. Eventually, it will be behind us, or permanently beside us.
And the workplace will never look exactly as it did in the Before Times - because we have learned earning a living doesn’t have to mean moving near and commuting to a job. If people can earn a living in the rural areas they love, they won’t leave. They can raise a family in St. Augusta while working for a company in St. Louis. If the data networks can support them.
Minnesota has done good work. The state has even set a statutory broadband speed goal for all Minnesotans of 100 Mbps/20 Mbps by 2026. The Governor’s Task Force on Broadband in 2018 recommended $70 million per biennium in ongoing funding to provide businesses and households across Minnesota to access minimum broadband internet at speeds of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps through the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant program.
But the 2020-2021 biennium allocation was $40 million, the most to date but not enough to help local governments and the private sector level the digital playing field for all Minnesotans.
With the pandemic forcing a mass, if involuntary, proof-of-concept for remote work at scale, all that’s left to do is close the gaps in our rural broadband and demand that lawmakers in St. Paul help fund it.
With robust rural broadband, our small towns are on equal footing with our big cities in the business world and our knowledge workers won’t be forced to join the brain drain train to where the jobs are.
As much as the 1900s were about funding highways to build and reinforce the economy, the 2000s have to evolve to prioritizing digital access. The pandemic has taught us that.
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