Despite COVID-19 setbacks, the expansive Malcolm Yards development in Prospect Park is moving forward after receiving funding for affordable housing.

Hennepin County approved a $250,000 grant in mid-November for 142 units of affordable housing at Malcolm Yards. The project will need more money from the city and county to start construction, but it is set to start by the end of 2021, following delays caused by the pandemic. The developer, Wall Companies, also hopes to complete a food hall this spring and market-rate apartments by 2022 as part of the community.

The development has been in the works for years as a planned community within Prospect Park that includes mixed-income housing, a food hall, commercial locations and green space. Malcolm Yards fits within the Towerside Innovation District, a northern part of the neighborhood that has been rapidly developed and supported by public and private stakeholders.

“This area was designated as the neighborhood developed nearly a decade ago,” said Dick Gilyard, a Prospect Park Association (PPA) and Towerside board member. “[We] reimagined this area from strictly an industrial area … to an area that would accommodate most jobs, as well as housing, parks, public realm and a real cultural art space.”

The city already gave $1 million for the affordable housing portion, and Wall Companies is waiting to hear back from the city on another $1.8 million request. The project will need more funding from Hennepin County, and Wall Companies project manager Jeff Ellerd said he hopes it will move quickly.

“Affordable housing projects are challenging,” Ellerd said. “You’ve got to get funding from a whole bunch of different partners.”

The mixed-use building, which includes commercial space and 184 market-rate apartments, is still in the planning stages and requires city funding to move forward.

Towerside board members have been involved with the project since the beginning, with hopes of installing environmentally friendly ways to heat the apartment buildings and manage stormwater.

Diane Rucker, a Towerside board member, said the group is waiting for City Council approval on a districtwide energy system that uses aquifer heating, an environmentally friendly way to heat the buildings using water rather than on-site natural gas.

“The opportunity there is the design of a building can be much more energy efficient, not rely on traditional coal, oil and so on,” Rucker said.

If the city does not approve it, Malcolm Yards will move forward with a traditional heating system that relies on fossil fuels. Ellerd, the developer, said that the city’s decision would have to be made within about six months to be included in the final designs.

Gilyard, from PPA and Towerside, said that neighbors’ visions for the site include job opportunities for community members and carbon-reduction strategies that can serve as an example to the rest of the city.

“What we’re trying to do through Towerside Innovation District and through the neighborhood is really not to look at these just as individual projects, but how they are a part of a much larger system that introduces new forms of energy that are carbon-reduction technologies,” Gilyard said.

The University of Minnesota will implement new restrictions in compliance with Gov. Tim Walz’s Thursday announcement that is set to halt dine-in services at restaurants and bars, close facilities like gyms and event spaces, and restrict social gatherings.

Starting Saturday, the University will make changes to dining, gyms, entertainment venues and college athletics, according to an email from University President Joan Gabel. Classes and research will continue as planned from the start of the semester, with instruction largely taking place online.

All dining locations will switch to “grab and go” until the start of spring semester. All indoor museums and entertainment venues will be closed, but outdoor programming may continue and any retail stores in these locations can remain open.

All gyms and recreation centers will be closed to students, except to athletes on the University’s varsity teams. Athletic competitions will continue, but only student-athletes and coaches will be allowed to attend events.

As planned since the start of semester, blended or in-person classes will switch entirely to distance learning on Nov. 30.

When Andrew Whitman is not on Zoom teaching University of Minnesota students the ins and outs of corporate risk management, he spends his time delivering meals and playing the harmonica for participants in the Meals on Wheels program.

Whitman is one of many volunteers who has stepped up to deliver meals to an increasing number of participants in the Eastside Meals on Wheels program.

The number of people requesting food has risen by nearly 45% since the beginning of the pandemic and is continuing to grow as COVID-19 cases climb and more people face difficulties leaving the house. The organization has responded by offering up to 21 meals a week per person rather than the seven meals per week offered before.

“We are growing, and we want to give the folks that are our clients everything that we can, especially right now when social contact is challenging and … it’s hard to get out to supermarkets,” said program director Jessie Hausman.

The program typically reaches older adults in most parts of northeast and southeast Minneapolis who struggle to get out of the house. But as CARES Act pandemic relief funds have flowed into the organization, Eastside Meals on Wheels has expanded its reach to any adult who is struggling with food insecurity or has difficulty leaving the house.

The CARES Act funding will cease at the end of the year.

“I am concerned for that transition,” Hausman said. “But I feel glad that we are able to serve as many people as possible now.”

The qualifications to receive meals will change once the organization can no longer support “unlimited” meals for people who are facing food insecurity.

“It will return to what is typical, which is like, if they’re 60 or older and they struggle to get out, they for sure will be on the list,” Hausman said. “But if not, it might be a waiting process. … We’ll have to look at our funds and see what we can provide.”

Hausman added that the organization will have to rely heavily on fundraising campaigns in 2021.

The volunteer base has grown in response to the increased need, thanks to people from local churches and those with extra time because of pandemic-related cancellations, Hausman said. She said volunteers have longer routes and more food to carry, but a lot of young people came forward to help after the pandemic hit, so the group has not struggled under the sudden influx of more participants.

Alexandra Fuher, a fourth-year medical student at the University, was taken off of her in-person clinical rotations in March. With extra time on her hands, she started delivering meals on a route near her neighborhood.

“It’s just a quick and easy way to give back to my community,” Fuher said. “I mean, it’s so close to where I live, and it’s somebody’s food. So it’s obviously incredibly important that somebody has access to that.”

Before the pandemic, volunteers would deliver five days a week and often visit with participants. Now they deliver three days a week while minimizing contact with other volunteers and participants.

Whitman, the harmonica-playing University professor, said one of the participants on his route used to invite him inside his house to show off his annual Christmas display with village houses and train stations wrapping around the living room. Whitman cannot go in the house anymore, but he still makes conversation from afar.

“Every time I go there now, I say, ‘I can’t wait for the day when you can again show me all of your villages,’” Whitman said.

Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), a global nonprofit that typically stations in countries facing violent conflict, trained Twin Cities volunteers to provide unarmed civilian protection against voter intimidation during election week.

NP uses nonviolent means to prevent civilian violence in conflict zones around the world, including in South Sudan and the Philippines. The group used these same unarmed de-escalation strategies in the Twin Cities to guard the polls on Election Day from people who sought to intimidate voters.

On Nov. 3, 250 volunteers donned bright orange vests marked with “Democracy Defenders” and worked at 30 polls in the Twin Cities area for one of NP’s first civilian protection projects in the U.S.

“We had to prepare folks for how to de-escalate [voter intimidation], how to position ourselves in a safe way … interacting with them by killing them with kindness,” said Frank McCrary III, a captain for volunteers at North Minneapolis polling sites and an organizer with Service Employees International Union Local 26 (SEIU), a regional labor union.

NP’s work centers around principles of nonviolence and nonpartisanship — but the group ensures that locals lead the work. The organization has paid staff in the other global locations who work to ensure safety for elections, funeral parades and trips to escort refugee women when they leave their camps.

“Why [NP is] so important is planting the seed,” McCrary said. “So, let’s plant the seeds so this can be germinated and other folks can take this information and train the trainers to get that stuff out there, so this can keep on going.”

The group started training U.S. volunteers in June, which it had only done once before — a few years ago during the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock reservation.

For Election Day, NP and SEIU Local 26 trained volunteers from local community organizations about situational awareness and de-escalation tactics before they were stationed at polling sites and helped escort a Minneapolis protest a few days later.

Last Saturday, about 20 volunteers suited up to marshall the March to Decide Our Future protest as the group moved down East Lake Street.

“We wanted to come to the United States because there’s so many indicators of ongoing violence, political polarization, economic difficulties, racial injustice,” said Marna Anderson, director of NP’s U.S. office.

The group’s U.S. branch, headquartered in St. Paul, has mainly done advocacy and fundraising to support other branches in South Sudan, Myanmar, Iraq and the Philippines. Leadership decided to start offering unarmed civilian protection in the U.S. after the George Floyd protests.

Christopher Grathwol, a University of Minnesota student completing a master’s degree in human rights, had just started researching nonviolence organizations, including NP, on behalf of the University’s Human Rights Lab.

“It was interesting in that aspect as well, to kind of take what I have learned about South Sudan and the Philippines and Colombia and have it be applied to my own neighborhood here in the United States,” said Grathwol, who acted as a poll watcher with NP.

Mel Duncan, NP co-founder and director of advocacy and outreach, said the group only offers its services when local community organizers request help and collaboration.

“They know their communities,” Duncan said. “Anything that’s sustainable will have to depend upon those communities taking responsibility and doing the work. We’ll only be there for a limited period of time.”

McCrary said he plans to continue working with NP for local initiatives, like training people in Twin Cities neighborhoods about de-escalation, so they could have resources to “make the police the last resort instead of the first one.”

NP’s other work in Minneapolis has included de-escalation training for resource officers in Minneapolis high schools in June after the district severed ties with the Minneapolis Police Department.

But Duncan said that “unfortunately,” the group is prepared to attend more events and train more volunteers in the U.S. in the coming months.

“Scabs have been ripped off of old wounds, 400-year-old wounds, and if they aren’t addressed properly there will be continued mass protests,” Duncan said. “And that’s important, and there will be then the opportunity for provocateurs to try to derail that and bring violence.”

He added that the group will be ready to respond to potential “trigger points” that may prompt protests, such as the president refusing to leave the White House or “an unacceptable verdict in the trial of the murder of George Floyd.”

“And so there will be a need to help to make sure that people can express themselves and get their message out and it doesn’t turn into a message about destruction and violence,” Duncan said.

University students have joined forces with the East Phillips neighborhood in an ongoing battle to establish an indoor urban farm plan rather than the city’s plan for a public works facility.

East Phillips neighborhood leaders have clashed with the city for years over the fate of the Roof Depot site, pointing to concerns over resident health and environmental justice.

The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) has worked to acquire the south Minneapolis land for years to establish affordable housing and an indoor urban farm in the Roof Depot building, which could provide at least 100 green jobs for neighbors. But the city is hoping to use the space for a Public Works water distribution facility and job training center. A lawsuit is now underway.

University of Minnesota students worked with EPNI to promote the farm and support environmental justice in the low-income neighborhood, composed mostly of people of color.

Nina Domingo, a University graduate student studying bioproducts and biosystems engineering, said she got involved in the project because she has seen a pattern of governments forcing people of color and low-income people into parts of cities — then polluting them.

“After that, we industrialize those same neighborhoods, so that these same people are exposed to high rates of pollution and are locked out of economic development,” Domingo said.

She said this is happening in East Phillips.

The city acquired the land in June 2016 with a plan to demolish the existing unoccupied Roof Depot building and construct a water distribution facility to replace the current 100-year-old operation. The project would consolidate three existing water distribution sites to one centrally located facility. The city’s vision also includes 100,000 square feet of buildings equipped with solar panels and opportunities to upgrade the current fleet of vehicles to be more energy efficient.

Neighbors filed a petition in January demanding the city to conduct an environmental assessment of the potential impact of their project. The city then approved an environmental review in June in response to the petition, said city spokesperson Sarah McKenzie.

EPNI wants the city to stop preparations for demolition until the review is completed and filed a lawsuit to stop the city from moving forward. The lawsuit will be heard Oct. 26.

The city’s goal is to suspend some parts of the lawsuit on the grounds that they should not be brought up until after the environmental review is completed. The environmental review is currently ongoing, halting the demolition of the warehouse for now.

EPNI’s goals for the site include establishing an indoor community farm with aquaponics that allow year-round planting, a bike shop, a farmer’s market, a coffee shop and 28 units of affordable housing.

“Our real goal [with the lawsuit] is to get the city’s attention, so that they’ll come to the table with us and work out a compromise solution that would satisfy the neighborhood goals and give us an opportunity along with the city needs,” EPNI president Dean Dovolis said.

The neighborhood group needs at least three acres of the 7.5 acre plot for their proposed farm, but the city’s vision does not offer enough room for the community to do this.

When the environmental review is complete, the city will submit results to the state, which will be posted for public comment — likely by December.

The city’s plan for the site would establish a job recruitment and training center in addition to the Public Works facility, according to the project’s web page. The goals include improving the city’s delivery of resources and creating hundreds of jobs.

“We don’t want to have more trucks coming into the neighborhood and adding to the pollution that we’re breathing in,” said Carlos Parra, EPNI board member. “There’s many young kids who are living their life around these fields with unknown underlying diseases that they never knew they had.”

Parra grew up in East Phillips and was diagnosed with asthma that sent him to the hospital multiple times as a child. He said neighbors can never open the windows, even in summer, because of the smell of asphalt and manufacturing from the Smith Foundry and Bituminous Roadways on the edge of the neighborhood.

“We’re at our limit. We can’t take no more [air pollution] here in East Phillips,” said Cassandra Holmes, long-term resident of Little Earth of United Tribes, an urban housing complex with Native preference. “Those jobs are going to cost us the lives of our children and our elders.”

A University student group and several students joined the project team to help with technology tasks and awareness.

Three members of University student group Net Impact recently reached out to news organizations, set up a Zoom webinar and made online posters on behalf of the neighborhood institute, said Madison Romain, a Net Impact board member.

Domingo said she works with EPNI to engage with people that she is trying to influence with her research as a graduate student.

“As you’re working in the environmental justice space, all these models you create and all this data you’re gathering really pales in comparison to the lived experiences of people,” Domingo said.

A dragonfly bike and a phoenix car led a fleet of vehicles that cruised through Cedar-Riverside Saturday as part of a community bike ride marking the end of summer.

Residents came to Currie Park and chose either a regular bike or a Lyft-provided electric-assist bike or scooter. Artistically decorated cars and bikes led the community parade down to the river.

“We are celebrating the end of summer of a very challenging year — celebrating our residents and neighbors that are together and celebrating community,” said community organizer Abdirizak Bihi.

Bikers and bystanders could not miss the art cars as they led the caravan with flashy colors and unusual designs, such as one that was completely covered in corks.

K.J. Starr, one of the bike ride’s organizers, originally reached out to car artist Mina Leierwood to ask her to bring her butterfly bike to the event. Coincidentally, a parade of art cars was scheduled for the same day in the area.

“The art cars and art bikes are all friends, so we are putting [both events] together,” Leierwood said.

Two cars were decorated in support of District 4 Minneapolis School Board candidate Adriana Cerrillo, who attended the event and rode in an art car decorated with her name on it. Cerrillo is running for a seat encompassing multiple south Minneapolis neighborhoods on a platform of school equity.

About 25 bikers attended, along with 12 art cars and others who came to support Cerillo’s campaign. Though participants wore masks and socially distanced, many community members stayed home because of pandemic-related concerns, Bihi said.

“The young people used to jump at the opportunity,” Bihi said. “Now they are hesitant and don’t want to go out.”

However, the young people who attended said they were excited to be at the event and connect with their neighbors.

“This is how we stay in touch,” participant Sahra Mohamed said. “And because of corona, of course, we’re all very distant. So whenever an opportunity comes up we try to take it.”

Before the bikers took off, University of Minnesota student Jamila Bihi, Abdirizak’s daughter, talked to the group about Sunna, or “the way of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,” and how it relates to taking care of the environment.

She added that it is a religious responsibility to take care of the environment and take care of your health by exercising.

“I feel like if people knew that this would be a good deed or this is something that they could do, it would be like double points,” Jamila said. “You’re doing something with the religion, and you’re doing something to help yourself and help the community.”

After the visit to the river, the group returned to the park to enjoy sambusas provided by the West Bank Business Association.

“Honestly, I just wanted to get a chance to get outside while I can. It was snowing yesterday, so I want to enjoy it while I can and get ahead,” Mohamed said with a laugh.

Sen. Tina Smith and other representatives met with college students to emphasize the importance of voting on Tuesday at Newell Park in St. Paul.

Student Democrats from four Twin Cities universities had a socially distant rally in the park with a panel of political representatives, including State Rep. Dave Pinto, State Senate candidate Erin Murphy, Ramsey County Commissioner Trista MatasCastillo and St. Paul School Board member Chauntyll Allen. Speakers emphasized the importance of voting and mobilizing other voters.

“[College students] have the capacity by using their voices and this election to change the direction of this country,” Smith said. “I hope that they also will understand that their power is not just in the voting booth, but it is in influencing elected officials like me and all the local officials that we heard today also.”

Student representatives came from the University of St. Thomas, Hamline University, Macalester College and the University of Minnesota. About 25 people attended the rally.

The University’s College Democrats secretary, Tessa Simon, said the group’s members connect with political candidates as surrogates for the broader student population.

“Since we get people from campus coming to our meetings, we can carry on [Smith’s] message better once we know exactly what she’s about,” Simon said.

Smith addressed topics such as the current Supreme Court hearings, women’s reproductive rights and student loans, but she mostly focused on voter turnout. She said that people are worried about the anxiety created by the president and her Republican opponent, Jason Lewis.

“But, you all, worried is not a strategy,” Smith said. “Organizing is a strategy. Voting is a strategy.”

College Democrats President Claire Anderson said members have conducted phone and text banking on behalf of Democratic candidates, like Ann Johnson Stewart and Bonnie Westlin in nearby suburbs, in hopes of flipping the State Senate. They have partnered with the Sister District Project, which aims to flip swing districts to advance progressive policy, Students for Biden and other organizations to get volunteers to make campaign calls.

While the group has kept outreach interactions virtual, Simon said members also chalked sidewalks around the University to try to get the attention of first-time voters and uninvolved students.

“I think a lot of times our political system is designed to make individuals feel powerless,” Simon said. “But when I’m working for candidates like Tina or other candidates, it becomes very apparent that an individual can do so much, like they can have so much impact.”

As students trickle back to campus, many local restaurants are stuck deciding between expanding their services or staying closed.

Some restaurants around the University of Minnesota have remained closed long past the governor’s lockdown order. Others have turned to online ordering methods and a greater focus on takeout to adapt to the market amid the pandemic.

Some Stadium Village restaurants have stayed closed, including Roti Modern Mediterranean and Naf Naf Grill. Sprout Salad Company did not answer phone calls and the doors were locked during listed hours. Dinkytown restaurants that have remained closed include The Purple Onion Cafe, Kitty Cat Club and Burrigato. These businesses could not be reached for comment.

Many restaurants around the East Bank of the University of Minnesota have struggled throughout the pandemic. Restaurants like Al’s Breakfast, Avocadish and Pho Mai have maintained high hopes while businesses like Erbert and Gerbert’s and Wonders Ice Cream closed in recent months.

For Umami Fries, challenges came quickly after the grand opening of their Dinkytown location in January. Two months later, an order from the governor shuttered restaurants throughout the state.

“The timing couldn’t have been worse,” said Samon Xiong, owner and co-founder of Umami Fries. “But we stomached the ride because we had a lot of family helping.”

Xiong said he chose Dinkytown for the restaurant because he knew students would be interested in the menu.

“I think our food represents a lot of our upbringing as first-generation Asian Americans, which is partly why we have a lot of support from family, friends and students,” Xiong said. “It’s like if you were from Philly and you are eating that cheesesteak, it just hits that spot.”

The restaurant reopened with limited hours in late June and contracted with delivery apps to help serve more customers. Umami Fries expanded to be open seven days a week a few days ago.

“We’re hoping for a good fall, but we’re worried the restaurant industry will not come back to that complete circle until next spring,” Xiong said.

Simpls, a soup restaurant and convenience store, closed their three locations, including their Stadium Village shop, due to the pandemic. The stores have no reopening dates set because of the uncertainty and reduced customers.

“On campus, there is a large amount of uncertainty being expressed about the safety of students being on campus with the level of coronavirus community spread,” Ryan Rosenthal, owner of Simpls, said in an email. “A shift to fully online seems to be a real possibility.”

Simpls adapted their model by instead offering scratch-made soups online for delivery to people’s doorsteps. For every quart of soup purchased, Simpls donates a bowl to healthcare workers or community members facing food insecurity, Rosenthal said.

Typically, restaurants depend on football crowds and high student traffic to spike customer turnout. But crowds are thin this year.

With pandemic-driven losses from the spring season, it can be difficult to keep doors open, said Kent Kramp, Dinkytown Business Alliance President and owner of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers in Dinkytown. His location is open, but does not receive as much business as it has in previous years.

“We want people to open up businesses in Dinkytown and it’s just a tough climate to open,” Kramp said. “Especially with the shortened semester, it will be hard to be in a good place by winter.”

With weeks dwindling before the election, University of Minnesota students are aiming to exceed past record voter turnout — and interest is mounting.

Two years ago, the University earned the highest student voter turnout across large public universities nationwide, with nearly 60% of students voting. Now, despite in-person limitations, the University and eager student volunteers are looking to top that number.

“What I have seen is a lot more concern with voting this year than I’ve ever seen before,” said Mike Miller, University legislative advocacy coordinator.

Miller said that he was receiving three to four emails a day from student groups asking if they can contribute to voter turnout efforts. In the 2016 election year, he said he had not received any emails from interested students.

“There’s been a lot of unrest recently, based on all kinds of things going on in society,” Miller said. “And the best way to change those things is to vote.”

Rose Lloyd-Slifkin — head of Row The Vote, a student-voter initiative created in August by the Minnesota Student Association — said there has been a lot of student interest in becoming ambassadors. They already surpassed their goal of recruiting 50 ambassadors and are now aiming for 75.

“It definitely seems like civic engagement is increasing, especially in our city,” Lloyd-Slifkin said. The police killing of George Floyd motivated students to make sure that their voices are heard on the issues that they care about, she said.

Students and a younger generation of voters are more socially aware and politically inclined, said Row The Vote ambassador Simran Chugani. “They’re not afraid to be taboo and talk about political and social issues,” she said.

However, the older generations are the ones currently making decisions in the country, said Meghan Cahill, a fourth-year University student and CA who promotes voter engagement throughout her dorm.

“We’re the ones that have to live with the consequences for the rest of our 50 to 80 years,” Cahill said.

The younger age group has the potential to influence this election, she said. A large body of students and young people now have their first opportunity to cast a ballot, and many partisan political student groups are currently mobilizing in preparation for the Nov. 3 election.

Each Row The Vote ambassador reaches out to their friends and followers on social media to talk about their registration status and answer questions concerning voting.

“It creates this chain reaction of students who are getting more engaged in voting,” Chugani said.

During quarantine, interest in civic engagement and activism has increased, Lloyd-Slifkin said. It provides a unique opportunity to reach student voters, especially with the ease of outreach on social media.

Despite COVID-19 limitations on in-person outreach, organizers are not deterred. Row The Vote’s goal is to have at least 85% of undergraduate students register to vote, and for 75% of students to cast a ballot.

“We are excited to follow up with ambassadors afterwards and talk about what went well and how we can improve, because we want to win our competitions for voter registration,” Lloyd-Slifkin said. “But we also want to just see registration increase exponentially for years to come.”