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St. Cloud welcomed several major development projects to the area in 2025.The area's biggest projects of the year spanned areas from health care to manufacturing and commercial space, excluding restaurants and housing, bringing in tens of millions of dollars in new developments.CentraCareThe CentraCare system brought in a total of over...
Roots & Wings Early Learning Center, LLC, affectionately called “The Mustard Seed” by owners Rob and Krista Sjostrand, is set to open spring of 2026.The project was planted in their hearts a little over 3 years ago. After COVID, when the world went a little sideways, the Sjostrands felt the...
Governor Tim Walz and the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) today announced the recipients of $8.8 million in grants to grow Minnesota's workforce through the Drive for 5 Workforce initiative. Drive for 5 is the state's program for preparing Minnesotans for high-demand jobs in five occupational categories: the...
New survey data indicates a likely surge in Opportunity Zone investing in 2027. What else is coming down the pike? Plus, the long-awaited 2025 OZ Holiday Gift Guide!In this episode of OZ NewsHour, Andy Hagans and Jimmy Atkinson deliver their end-of-year program, covering brand-new proprietary survey data, OZ 2.0 policy...
Each year, Area Development partners with Chmura Economics & Analytics to evaluate the performance of U.S. metropolitan areas based on the fundamentals that matter most to business expansion: workforce, economic strength, and adaptability. Using Chmura’s data-driven model — which equally weights Prime Workforce and Economic Strength — the Leading Metro...
St. Cloud Sky Central Airport boasted its increased passenger count and improvement projects in its comprehensive community report, released Dec. 17.Since 2022, the St. Cloud Regional Airport Authority worked on improvement projects worth nearly $10.9 million, of which nearly 93% was funded by state and federal grants, according to a...
The Northland Foundation is pleased to share that 14 individuals were awarded $66,500 in Maada’ookiing grants this past summer which include awards made through a special “pop-up” Maada'ookiing grant opportunity that was announced in the spring. Another six grants totaling $29,450 were awarded in the fall grantmaking round.“The Maada’ookiing Advisory...
Northeast MN and Tribal Nation Lands—The Northland Foundation awarded 29 grants totaling $728,750 through its Quarterly Grant program during July, August, and September. A large share of the grants went to organizations addressing food insecurity in communities throughout northeastern Minnesota, including food banks, food shelves, and other food distribution programs.“Food...
A critical shortage of development-ready industrial sites is pushing states to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in product development. These proactive efforts aim to enhance the developability and speed-to-market of industrial property, ultimately attracting capital investment and job creation. Site Selection Group regularly monitors these investments, and this article...
Planned data center construction is surging to meet demand for cloud applications, cryptocurrency, streaming services and artificial intelligence. Electric co-ops are at the center of that development, with some fielding multiple new requests at a time to serve data centers.These large loads can benefit co-ops and the communities they serve...
Daikin Applied Americas Inc., a maker of commercial HVAC equipment, has begun construction of a 163 million dollars research and development test lab in the Twin Cities. The 71,000-square-foot facility will be located at the company's Plymouth headquarters at 13600 Industrial Park Boulevard according to an announcement Tuesday. Completion is...
Two years after a company confirmed the presence of helium beneath the surface of Northeastern Minnesota, other companies are poking around the area for confirmation of a lightweight gas from the other end of the periodic table of elements: hydrogen.At its remote site between Babbitt and Isabella, Pulsar Helium has...
The Cold Chain Sector Recalibration
Dec 3 2025United States cold storage is a specialized sector representing less than 2% of the overall industrial market, yet it is mission-critical infrastructure for U.S. consumption. Today, the property type is in a period of generational change. Average rents have grown more than 100% since 2020, yet vacancy has climbed to...
Nearly a third of the Mankato Population are members of the Greater Mankato - Support Local Businesses Page.It was originally meant for local restaurants to reach out to the community during COVID.Greater Mankato Growth’s Andy Wilke says it’s now serving a dual purpose, “Not just to celebrate businesses, but then...
AI-Forward Content Strategies for Economic Developers: How to Promote Your Community in 2026
Dec 2 2025As economic developers look for new ways to promote their communities online, adapting to an AI-driven search landscape has become essential. At Golden Shovel Agency, we’re helping organizations rethink their 2026 content strategies to ensure their communities stand out—both to people and to artificial intelligence.Economic Developers Must Adapt to the...
Robots repairing femurs. AI being wielded to find cancer treatments. These are just a few areas of research that will be supported by the new Strategic Innovation Center (SIC) recently announced at Rowan University in New Jersey.“Maybe one day down the road, we will have the Silicon Valley of medtech...
Foreign dollars invested in the United States increased by $332.1 billion to $5.71 trillion at the end of 2024, with the manufacturing sector seeing the highest increases and retaining the largest sector of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country. This year has also seen a yo-yo effect when it...
A power developer has a novel plan to build a $4 billion data center in rural southwestern Minnesota, as well as an armada of wind, solar and battery plants the company hopes will attract a wealthy buyer.Somewhere among the farm fields that dominate the landscape around the tiny enclaves of...
Anyone planning to make a location decision in the coming years should be paying attention to Opportunity Zones, the federal capital gains tax incentive designed to drive productive investment into low-income areas across the country.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) made Opportunity Zones (OZs) a permanent feature of the...
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins today announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture is making $7 million in payments available to advanced biofuel producers nationwide through the Advanced Biofuel Producer Payment Program, which is a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill. The funding is aimed at increasing the...
For years, Opportunity Zones were viewed mostly as a tax play — a way for investors to park capital gains while checking the “social impact” box. That narrow view is about to change. With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in 2025, Congress permanently extended and...
Chance R. Briscoe has been named new chief executive officer by the BENCO Electric Cooperative board of directors, starting Jan. 1.He succeeds Dave Sunderman, a 33-year employee, who is retiring.Currently serving as general manager at Northwest Rural Public Power District in Nebraska, Briscoe has nearly 20 years of electric utility...
Form Energy, the startup making 100-hour iron-air batteries, has this month begun deploying its first commercial batteries, CEO Mateo Jaramillo told Latitude Media. The batteries will be installed at Great River Energy’s multi-day storage project in Minnesota, which is expected to be fully operational next year.The delivery of those first...
The Nobles County Planning commission hosted a work session with Geronimo Power last Wednesday to talk about data centers.Geronimo Power has about 2,800 megawatts of wind and solar power generation either in operation or under construction in Minnesota, provides battery storage and is now venturing into data centers.“Our mission is...
