Dominium, a Plymouth-based apartment developer, is moving forward with plans for apartments in the Lehmann Center at 1006 W. Lake St.

The real estate company purchased the building from Minneapolis Public Schools for $6.15 million in late December, according to a news release from the CBRE Group Inc.

The 139,000-square-foot Lehmann Center is on 2.6 acres of land near the Midtown Greenway. The building was originally home to the Buzza Greeting Card factory. 

Dominium is planning to renovate the historic building to make room for 120 apartments. 

Minneapolis residents are being encouraged to help city leaders reshape ward and park district boundaries in the coming months in an effort to keep communities with shared interests from being split.

The redistricting process — triggered by the 2010 U.S. Census — aims to create equitable wards and park districts based on population. Each of the city’s 13 wards should have between 27,958 and 30,900 people, while each of the city’s six park districts should be between 60,575 and 66,951, according to the latest population figures.

Common Cause Minnesota, a non-partisan government watchdog group, is working to inform residents about the process and has built a website where residents can draw their own ward and park district maps, Full Article

Police are noticing an increase in smartphone thefts, including in the city's 5th Precinct.

Most cases have occured between 9:30 and 11:30 p.m., according to the crime alert issued today. In some cases, the smartphone has been ripped out of the victims' hands while they walked down the street or were waiting for the bus.

Police urge people to record their phones' serial numbers and install functions that help locate phones if lost or stolen. Call 911 if your phone is stolen.
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The lack of snow and unseasonably warm weather forecast for the week has prompted organizers of the 2012 City of Lakes Loppet festival to move all activities to Theodore Wirth Park.

The main race scheduled for Sunday was originally planned to end with a finish in the heart of Uptown near Calhoun Square. Now racers will do multiple laps around a 3.5K loop at Theodore Wirth. The Park Nicollet Luminary Loppet typically held on Lake of the Isles will now be a hiking activity Saturday evening.

For more details and a schedule of activities, click here. 
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50th & BRYANT — Classic English-style pub George and the Dragon has been revealed as the new business at 50th & Bryant, the location that was home to businesses such as Heidi’s and Patina before a destructive 2010 fire.

The new pub is the brainchild of Fred Navarro, a local veteran restaurant manager, and his wife Stacy Navarro. Fred Navarro managed multiple restaurants at the Mall of America through the Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants company, and his wife is handling much of the behind-the-scenes work.

Navarro said that his decision to go out on his own has much more to do with wanting to be a part of his community than a lifelong dream to run his own restaurant. The restaurant is six blocks away from his house and only three blocks f
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Rock opera years in the making debuts in February

WINDOM — The story of Paul Lyme was written, for the most part, in John Hile’s basement on a quiet, bungalow-lined street in Windom, just a stone’s throw away from Oak Hill Cemetery — which is appropriate since, when the story opens, Lyme is dead.

You can’t miss Hile’s house, not at night when the green bulb blazing above his front door lights up the street like someone left the lid up on the Xerox machine. If power failed at the airport, jet pilots could look for Hile’s house, bank west and touch down without a problem.

On Wednesday nights, the light guides a group of veteran Twin Cities musicians down to MonkeyTown Studios (Hile’s basement)
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