The city of Minneapolis announced Friday afternoon five winners of the first Vibrant Storefronts Initiative.

Created by the city’s Arts & Cultural Affairs Department, the program offers up to $50,000 to artist-run organizations to subsidize the rental of vacant Loring Park storefronts. The groups can use the properties for a variety of projects including art shows, pop-up shops, art and production studios and office space.

“Artists have a long history of challenging perspectives, of incentivizing economic development, and what we’ve seen historically is that when an artist comes in, they rejuvenate the neighborhood, but then when values go up, the rents get jacked through the roof, along with those values, and the people that made these neighborhoods get displaced,” Mayor Jacob Frey said. “The whole idea here is that we’re able to keep people and retain and highlight art.”

The 2024 awardees include Blackbird Revolt, an abolitionist design studio; Black Business Enterprise, an art activation hub that offers artists and business owners supportive resources; Twin Cities Pride, an organization that’s more than 50 years old and seeks to create a safe space for LGBTQ cultural celebrations; Flavor World, a creative hub for Twin Cities artists, focusing on talent of the next generation, and Skntones, a creative production and marketing agency that will host art exhibitions and focus on underrepresented voices.

The organizations will rent space at 1128 Harmon Place, 1201 Harmon Place, 1218 Harmon Place and 1227 Hennepin Av. S., properties that have been vacant for four to six years.

The winning organizations were selected from 43 applicants and will have the storefront space for two years, with a chance to renew. There will be another Vibrant Storefronts application round after the city approves its next round of budgets.

The initiative is part of the cultural districts policy in the Minneapolis 2040 comprehensive plan, which emphasizes creating community-based ambassadors, supporting temporary arts activations and bolstering cultural festivals, events and spaces.

“This transforms our organization to have a physical space,” Blackbird Revolt co-founder and creative director Terresa Moses said. “Whenever we do activations, we have to rely on other spaces, rent out things, see what people’s schedules are.”

County officials identified three close races — the 14B House seat, two Elk River school board seats and two Baldwin City Council seats — and offered to pay for hand recounts even though the results were outside the threshold for automatic recounts.

The vote count changes prompted state Republican Party Chair David Hann to call on the Secretary of State’s office to investigate the District 14B results and pay for a recount.

“We have now learned that additional ballots have been ‘found,’” Hann said Nov. 8. “These discrepancies are not only suspect but need to be investigated and explained to Minnesotans immediately.”

The following day, Messelt said: “Contrary to circulating rumors, no votes were ‘lost’ and none were ‘found.’” He said all ballots cast were properly received, documented and counted, “and chain of custody maintained.”

Sherburne County Board Member Andrew Hulse said Wednesday that he has “never been more disappointed with my party than I was over their behaviors with respect to this issue.”

Hulse said before being elected to the board, he was party chair of a Republican Senate district for a decade and is currently a Republican delegate. Despite this, he said, no one from the GOP reached out to him “before they started sending out press releases that had wildly inaccurate information.”

A Fleet Farm employee was sent to the hospital after being assaulted at the Carver store on Sunday afternoon.

Law enforcement were called to the store, located at 1935 Levi Griffin Road, after 2 p.m. on Sunday, said Lt. Jason Breunig, a spokesman with the Carver County Sheriff’s Office. A female employee was assaulted with what investigators believe might have been an “edged weapon,” Breunig said.

“We believe a weapon was involved, but that is still under investigation,” he said.

A man was arrested and is being held at the Carver County Jail. Charges were not filed as of Sunday night.

The employee suffered an injury to her neck, Breunig said. She was hospitalized, however, her injuries were not believed to be life threatening.

Breunig did not provide additional details. He said more information should be released this coming week.