Tag Archives: news

Get ready for Sidewalk Days!

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Downtown Duluth will kick off its annual Sidewalk Days tomorrow (Wednesday), with the deals and fun slated to last three days (through Friday).

Duluth’s downtown merchants will be joined by more than 50 vendors for the event. In addition to bargains, you’ll find food, music and children’s activities at this year’s Sidewalk Days.

To accommodate the festivities, a segment of Superior Street between Lake Avenue and Fourth Avenue West will be closed to vehicles beginning at 8 a.m. each day. But the event will sprawl clear from First Street to Fitgers. Superior will reopen to traffic at 9 p.m. on Wednesday, and at 6 p.m. on Thursday and Friday (with the exception of the first block of West Superior Street which will remain closed Friday until 8 p.m. for concert).

At noon Wednesday, the Greater Downtown Council and the YMCA will join forces to put on the second annual Sidewalk Shuffle 5K Run and Walk. A number of downtown businesses have put together teams to participate in the race, and we expect the competition for bragging rights will remain friendly, as it has in the past. The News Tribune has assembled its own team of speed demons, including publisher Ken Browall, city hall reporter Brandon Scott, arts and entertainment writer Christa Lawler, sports writer Jon Nowacki and copy editor Kelli Baxter. Be careful out there fellas.

Other highlights of the week will include:

  •  The ninth annual Classic Car show and Harley Revue from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, featuring “six blocks of cars, bikes and bands,” according to the Greater Downtown Council. The show will necessitate blocking off an additional two blocks of Superior Street from Fourth to Sixth avenues wes;t
  •  A “Rock the Block” concert by Brandon Scott Sellner in front of sponsor CSL Plasma, 9 W, Superior St., from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday;
  • Friday night street dances featuring the Pot Bellied Stallions in front of sponsor Aces, 113 W. First St., and Monsters of Mock in front of their sponsor Downtown Live (formerly the Pioneer Bar), 323 W. First St., from 8 p.m. to midnight;
  • And a Saturday night street dance showcasing the talents of Lamont Cranston in front of Dubh Linn Pub, 109 W. Superior St., from 8 to midnight.
     

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More on Cirrus co-founder’s bid to acquire jet program

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Without question, Alan Klapmeier’s bid to acquire Cirrus Aircraft’s jet program is in the early stages of development, and the devil will lie in the details of any proposal he can piece together.

But Arcapita, the Atlanta-based investment company which holds a controlling interest in Cirrus, is open to hearing what Klapmeier has to offer, as it seeks additional capital for the jet’s development.

Klapmeier co-founded Cirrus with his brother, Dale, 25 years ago, and still serves as chairman of the company’s board.

“Alan is a renowned aviation innovator, and if anyone can develop a workable plan, it’s probably him. We will take his proposal seriously,” said Charles Ogburn, executive director of Arcapita’s corporate investment group, during a mostly-off-the-record phone conversation this past weekend.

In an interview with AVweb, an online publication covering aviation, Klapmeier explained why he thinks it makes sense for him to personally assemble a team of investors to acquire the jet program and push it forward.

A podcast of that interview will be released Friday, but AVweb has posted a preview.
Aviation journalist Russ Niles asked Klapmeier why Cirrus wouldn’t simply raise money for the program itself.

Klapmeier explained that conventional financing is harder to come by these days, especially when the profitability of Cirrus’ core operations has diminished in the face of recession.
He also suggested that a different breed of investor may be attracted to taking a stake in Cirrus’ upstart jet program.

Here’s an excerpt: “The people who would want to invest in Cirrus as an ongoing production company aren’t necessarily the same people who would want to invest in the jet program. I’ve always thought they should be the same people, and I guess I would have to say I was probably wrong in my view of how people should look at the combined company. Sort of facing economic reality, the question is: How do we bring in outside capital to do this?
 

“There are alternatives, and at this time, I would say none of them are great alternatives:

  •  Me putting together a group to buy the company,
  •  The company trying to finance it itself
  •  Or Arcapita trying to put in additional financing.

"None of them are great alternatives.

“So it comes down to if you believe this is a product that has a market that can be profitably built, that should be built and is good for the long-term customer base, the industry and Cirrus as well. Then, we have to look at these alternatives.”
 

Check out an extended audio clip here. AVweb will release its full podcast of the interview Friday, so watch for that, too.

 

WSJ deems Duluth’s Nokomis noteworthy

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The Wall Street Journal devoted some laudatory ink to Nokomis Restaurant in Duluth Township in its weekend edition.
Raymond Sokolov won’t likely endear himself to locals with the opening to his column, “Dinner Deep in Walleye Territory.”

He begins: “It was lunchtime in flyover country.”

But Sokolov goes on to observe that while East and West Coasters may not deign to put down in Great Lakes territory, his recent dining experience proves “beyond a doubt that the view from 30,000 feet misses first-rate grub well worth coming to earth for.”

He goes on to sing the praises of Nokomis Restaurant, operating under the direction of Chef Sean Lewis, who worked in revered Chicago kitchens before landing in Duluth, including the Everest Room, perched above the Chicago Stock Exchange.

Sokolov writes glowingly of Lewis’ whitefish cake with a mustard remoulade, brioche and roasted peppers, as well as the restaurant’s walleye sandwich.

The latter earned the following assessment: “The perfectly broiled piece of walleye we ate exemplified what cookbooks call ‘fleshy white fish.’ Moist, sweet-tasting and fleshy, this was supremo fish, in a truly superior setting.”

Read Sokolov’s whole column here. 

One other Duluth connection. Note that the Wall Street Journal’s images of food at Nokomis were captured by Derek Montgomery, a photographer formerly employed here at the Duluth News Tribune.

 

Work begins at Soo Locks

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After more than two decades of planning, work finally began on a new lock in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., today.

OK… So work hasn’t really begun on a new lock yet, but construction of a couple of $1.9 million coffer dams has commenced. And these dams will hold back the St. Marys River, making work on a new lock possible.

For years, the Great Lakes maritime community has been calling for a new structure equivalent to the Poe Lock to be built at the Soo. The Poe is the only lock large enough to handle the 40 biggest freighters moving cargo on the Great Lakes. Together, these large lakers represent 70 percent of the U.S.-flagged carrying capacity on the lakes, according to the Great Lakes Maritime Task Force, a group formed to promote domestic and international shipping on the planet’s largest chain of fresh water lakes.

If anything happened to force the Poe out of service, it could hobble shipping on the Great Lakes, and the consequences could be dire.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has gone so far as to call the Soo Locks “the single point of failure that could cripple Great Lakes shipping.”

In a typical year, the Soo Locks handle more than 80 million tons of cargo — including iron ore pellets to feed the nation’s steel mills, coal to fuel electrical plants and grain destined for foreign markets.

Of course, this year has been anything but typical due to the ongoing recession, and the cargo flow through the Soo Locks has fallen off sharply as a result. But most expect the current season is an anomaly.

Constructing the coffer dams is expected to provide employment for about 1,000 people.
Building the actual lock is expected to create roughly 15,000 jobs, both directly and indirectly, during the next decade.

Oh, and about the cost? We’re still waiting on $580 million in funding.