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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Andrew Tellijohn
February 2008

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Real estate

INFORMER :: REAL ESTATE

Park Midway Bank?s new
?green? HQ leads
to more business, too

Sunlight pours through the artistic skylights and the floor-to-ceiling windows at the new headquarters for Park Midway Bank in St. Paul.

Those windows are energy-efficient, as is the heating and mechanical system, the motion-sensitive lights, the low-water system in the restrooms, and everything else in the new building on Como Avenue in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood.

It?s the first LEED-certified bank building in Minnesota, says banker Terri Banaszewski. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Rick Beeson, president and CEO, expects payback on most of those items within 15 years. The building cost $5 million, about $200,000 more than it would have without the special features. He says he didn?t necessarily expect the effort to build an environmentally friendly building to take on a life of its own.

But now the bank has contracted with Xcel Energy to buy 30 percent of its electricity from wind, which costs a bit more. They may sponsor a wind turbine in the neighborhood to generate electricity.

They?ve offering an eco-checking account, which is an online bank account and they?ll donate $20 to an environmental cause when a customer opens one. They have a promotional loan rate for those who buy a hybrid car. They have a partnership with Eureka Recycling and buy all post-consumer paper products.

A new coffee bar in the lobby, which Park Midway underwrites with the proceeds going to a neighborhood group each month, is generating new connections, says Banaszewski.

?We?re going to do a lot with this theme,? Beeson says. Park Midway has $250 million in assets and is growing 12 percent a year.

?Being an urban community bank that we are, we felt we had to demonstrate our leadership. We thought we had to back our words with actions,? Beeson says.
He says they had to start early to get community support for the project. ?This is the biggest building in the Park, and we had a little open space and we built over that,? Beeson says.

?You have to build in a lot of process time. This neighborhood is change-averse.? They started with a town hall meeting, then developed a task force, hand-picking key people in the neighborhood to sit on it. ?So it became a fun process, although they pushed back,? he says about the neighbors.

Rick Beeson, Terri Banaszewski, Park Midway Bank: 651.523.7800;
rick@parkmidwaybank.com; terrib@parkmidwaybank.com;
www.parkmidwaybank.com