New tenant announced in DMC’s Discovery Square at DMCC board meeting

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One Discovery Square

The Destination Medical Center Corporation (DMCC) Board of Directors recognized significant progress with several DMC projects at its September 25 meeting. Among them – One Discovery Square – a Mortenson development consisting of 90,000 square feet of lab and office space that will cater to the life science economy.

Mortenson Director of Real Estate Development Jeremy Jacobs updated the Board on progress, and when asked about any new leases, he noted that Epic has signed on as a new tenant, joining previously announced anchor tenants Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota Rochester. Additional companies (large and small) will be announced within 60 – 90 days. One Discovery Square is expected to open in April 2019.

Inside the Castle: Creating a new beginning for the Rochester Armory

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Just over one year ago, the future of the Rochester Armory was uncertain. Today, the historic downtown landmark is just weeks away from opening to the public as a rejuvenated multi-use facility, located in the Destination Medical Center district in downtown Rochester.

Rendering of Castle Community Commons

Castle Community will marry art and creativity with dining and entertainment in this culturally rich, century-old space.

New tenant announced in DMC’s Discovery Square during DMCC board meeting

Press Releases

(Rochester, Minnesota) Sept. 25, 2018 – The Destination Medical Center Corporation (DMCC) Board of Directors today recognized significant progress with several DMC projects. Among them – One Discovery Square – a Mortenson development consisting of 90,000 square feet of lab and office space that will cater to the life science economy.

Mortenson Director of Real Estate Development Jeremy Jacobs updated the Board on progress, and when asked about any new leases, he noted that Epic has signed on as a new tenant, joining previously announced anchor tenants Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota Rochester. Additional companies (large and small) will be announced within 60 – 90 days.  One Discovery Square is expected to open in April 2019.

Five Questions with Brian Austin, Executive Director of the Rochester Art Center

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Brian Austin

The Rochester Art Center (RAC) is an essential community asset and the local hub for culture, innovation, and creativity driven through contemporary art.

We sat down with Executive Director Brian Austin, who has been in his role since January 2018, to learn more about his priorities for the organization and why he thinks the Destination Medical Center (DMC) initiative will encourage more collaborations for the community.

DMC hosts Design Workshops: Ideas to Solutions in 90 Minutes

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Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency is offering FREE design workshops to help prepare participants interested in entering the Assistive Tech Challenge pitch competition. Workshop participants will learn to take their idea from a raw concept to a workable solution that will address challenges faced by individuals with disabilities.

Each fast-paced, hands-on workshop will focus on a different area of assistive technology-related design thinking.

Our City, a national nonprofit working to transform how people engage with their cities, will facilitate the sessions in partnership with the Assistive Tech Challenge.

Reaching new heights through collaboration

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Rendering of Gonda Building upon completion of additional floors

Mayo Clinic has announced plans to collaborate with Singapore-based real estate developer Pontiac Land Group to expand the clinic’s Gonda Building. The collaboration will advance Mayo Clinic’s expansion plans by nearly a decade. The 11-floor vertical expansion will include four floors dedicated to new clinical space and seven floors that will house a premier hotel.

“The expansion of the Gonda Building on Mayo Clinic’s downtown Rochester campus to accommodate new clinical space and a new hotel are wonderful additions to Destination Medical Center’s Heart of the City,” says Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency Executive Director Lisa Clarke. “This unique collaboration – and Pontiac Land Group investing here – also continues to prove that Rochester is an attractive market for investors and developers from around the globe.”

While details are still being finalized, preliminary plans indicate construction will begin in late 2019 or early 2020.

Click here to learn more about this exciting new downtown Rochester, Minnesota development.

Sign up for an Assistive Tech Challenge Orientation

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Are you curious about how you can get involved in the Assistive Tech Challenge? Join us for an orientation session to learn more.

The Assistive Tech Challenge is a pitch competition to facilitate greater independence for individuals with disabilities and the daily challenges they face. Teams compete for prize money to advance their ideas about ways to alleviate barriers to employment, reduce the need for or ease the demands of care providers, help develop social skills to better enable people with and without disabilities to interact and cultivate meaningful relationships, and improve access to the community through public infrastructure.

What Rochester can learn from the development boom in downtown Minneapolis

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The success of Minneapolis in creating a new vibrancy in its downtown urban core didn’t happen because of one or two development projects – or because of a single event like hosting the Super Bowl. Rather, it was the result of many diverse and civic-minded players working to stitch together a puzzle of very different ideas and interests to create a shared vision of renewal.

That was a key takeaway from the third annual “best practices” tour of Minneapolis’s city center on August 30 by a cross-section of Rochester civic and business leaders.

As in previous years, the 2018 tour was organized by the Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency (DMC EDA) and curated by University of Minnesota urban design researcher Tim Griffin.

Minneapolis redevelopment case study combines brewing, business, and best practices

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As Destination Medical Center (DMC) stakeholders ponder how the evolution of Rochester’s Heart of the City and Discovery Square sub-districts will play out, civic leaders got an up-close look at one new development in downtown Minneapolis that offered some valuable “best practices” examples on how it could be done.

An August 30 bus tour was coordinated by DMC Economic Development Agency (EDA) to study how Minneapolis has been rejuvenating its urban core in recent years. Representatives from Rochester’s business, political, governmental, and cultural sectors spent valuable time at the “Kraus-Anderson mixed-use block,” located near the Hennepin County Medical Center in the “East Town” section of downtown, an area that’s long been dominated by underused surface parking lots.