Star Tribune
Rochester outpaces rest of state in job growth
ROCHESTER – Buoyed by strong growth in the health care industry, Minnesota’s third-largest city continues to outpace the rest of the state in job creation.
The Rochester Metropolitan Statistical Area added about 7,000 jobs over the past year, a 6.3% year-to-year increase, according to the September jobs report from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). By comparison, Minnesota as a whole was up 1.2% during the same time period. The next closest region to Rochester was Mankato, which grew 1.6% year to year.
Much of the growth in Rochester MSA, which includes Dodge, Fillmore, Olmsted and Wabasha counties, was driven by a 15% year-to-year increase in the education and health services sector. The sector employed 62,435 people in the region in September, nearly half the overall workforce.
The strong job numbers come as Mayo Clinic breaks ground on the first phases of “Bold. Forward. Unbound. In Rochester.” The $5 billion project — the largest investment in Minnesota history — is expected to bring about 2,000 construction workers to Rochester in the coming years.
While Mayo has not said how many employees it plans to hire once the new facilities open, local economic development officials expect the impacts of the expansion to reverberate across the region.
“As their growth goes up, the rest of the economy grows as well,” said John Wade, president of the Rochester Area Economic Development, Inc. (RAEDI). “If you think about neighboring communities, too, there will be more housing opportunities and job opportunities and businesses looking to expand.”
Wade said he also sees potential for growth in other sectors tied to Mayo, such as hospitality, which makes up more than 8% of the region’s workforce. Precision manufacturing and medical technology were also identified as potential growth sectors.
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
A St. Paul man who was in critical condition following a fire last week at his home in the Battle Creek neighborhood has died, marking the city’s eighth fire death this year.
According to a news release from the St. Paul Fire Department, the man was found unconscious in the basement of a house on Nelson Street early in the morning of Oct. 17, after fire crews had extinguished a fire at the two-story residence. Paramedics undertook life-saving measures before taking him to the hospital.
No one else was injured in the fire, which was found to have been accidental and started in the engine of a car parked in the tuck-under garage. The fire was confined to the garage, but heavy smoke filled the house. Smoke detectors enabled others in the house to exit safely, officials said.
