February 20, 2020By; Heather Carlson Kehren

ROCHESTER, Minn. — A Mayo Clinic transplant team recently performed the 20,000th transplant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. This major milestone comes as researchers study the potential for regenerative medicine approaches to dramatically transform how transplants are performed in the future. Regenerative medicine aims to shift the focus from treating disease to tapping the body’s ability to heal diseased cells, tissues and organs. Mayo Clinic’s transplant history began in 1963, when surgeons performed the clinic’s first living donor kidney transplant. That same year, transplant teams completed Mayo Clinic’s first bone marrow transplant.

Since those early days, Mayo Clinic’s transplant programs have expanded from kidney and bone marrow to face, hand, heart, liver, lung, pancreas and pediatric transplant programs. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of Mayo Clinic’s William J. von Liebig Center for Transplantation and Clinical Regeneration in Rochester.

“Mayo Clinic would never have been able to achieve this incredible milestone had it not been for the heroic decisions of donors and their families to give these lifesaving gifts,” says J.P. Scott, M.D., the transplant center’s interim director. “We are grateful for the trust that transplant recipients and donors have placed in us, and proud of our caring transplant center staff who always put the needs of our patients first.”

Mayo Clinic in Rochester has performed 8,808 bone marrow transplants, 6,297 kidney transplants, 3,198 liver transplants, 714 heart transplants, 538 pancreas transplants, 441 lung transplants, three islet cell transplants and one face transplant.

Researchers are also studying how to use the latest technology and recent medical discoveries to transform how transplants will be performed in the future.

Dennis Wigle, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic thoracic surgeon and researcher, sees regenerative medicine as key to the future of transplant. New therapies could allow for damaged or diseased organs to be repaired so they could be used for transplant. These breakthroughs also could help make sure transplanted organs remain healthy, preventing rejection or the need for a second transplant. Dr. Wigle’s research is focused on the potential for using a person’s own stem cells to build an artificial or new lung.

“What was really science fiction four or five years ago has become a potential clinical reality,” Wigle says. “Obviously it’s a technology that is not going to be ready tomorrow or next week, or even next year, but there’s a lot of groups that have made a ton of advances, including ours, in trying to work toward that goal as a reality.”

Until that future day arrives, the need for organ and bone marrow donors remains critical.

Living donors can donate a kidney or a portion of their liver. Deceased donors can donate up to eight organs, corneas and other types of tissues. More than 112,000 people are on the waiting list for a lifesaving organ, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. To register to become an organ donor, go to Donate Life America’s website. To be a bone marrow donor, join the Be The Match registry.

About Mayo Clinic- Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing. Visit the Mayo Clinic News Network for additional Mayo Clinic news and An Inside Look at Mayo Clinic for more information about Mayo.

Media contact: •Heather Carlson Kehren, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, [email protected]

Recent waves of outside-the-box ideas in housing have brought us teeny-weeny homes, converted shipping containers, prefab modern palaces, and co-housing apartments with luxe perks for millennials.

But the latest “it” homes with builders and buyers have actually been around since the 19th century.

Townhouses, those classic rows of attached single-family homes that are a fixture in American cities and suburbs alike, got a second wind in the 1960s. That’s due to folks scooping up these existing, and often inexpensive, older abodes as they moved back into the big cities. And now the lovechild of a condominium and standalone house is back again and hotter than ever with both buyers and builders.

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In fact, townhomes are now the fastest-growing segment of the single-family housing construction market, according to the National Association of Home Builders, a Washington, DC–based trade group.

Townhouse construction was up 17.8% from 2014 to 2015, according to the most recent data available from the NAHB. Meanwhile, construction on standalone homes rose only 10%, while co-op, condo, and apartment construction jumped 12.1% over the same period.

They made up about 12.4% of all new construction in the single-family home market last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

The secret of their popularity lies with first-time buyers, who are typically younger and cash-strapped. Townhouses and row homes sold for a median $198,000 in September—about 12% less than detached single-family homes, according to the most recent data available from realtor.com®.

About a quarter of current and wannabe homeowners plan to buy a townhouse this year, according to a realtor.com® survey released in October. It was the most popular form of housing after single-family homes. That percentage was even higher for millennials, about a third of whom plan to close on one in 2017.

“Townhouses are indeed the affordable solution to expensive land in more and more urban areas,” says realtor.com’s chief economist, Jonathan Smoke. “For many people, it can be the most affordable way to buy a home and to get into a more desirable neighborhood.”

Many baby boomers also see the charms of a home that doesn’t require strenuous outdoor maintenance. (Residents of many townhome developments can pay their homeowners association to take care of those chores.)

Whether they’re in the city or the suburbs, townhomes are often located in trendier, more walkable areas with good schools and shopping nearby, Smoke says. They also often tend to be close to employment and transit centers.

Using a townhome as a ‘bridge’ to better things

With a 16-month-old daughter and a baby on the way, Julie and Zach Pastko figured they would need more space than what they had in their two-bedroom, two-bath Chicago condo.

So, like many a young family, they looked to the suburbs, settling on Palatine, IL, known for its excellent schools. But instead of plunking down all their cash on a traditional single-family home with a yard, they made a more modest purchase: a four-bedroom, 3.5-bath townhouse.

“We never had a dining room table before,” says Julie of their additional living space. “And we have two more bedrooms to furnish. We were so cramped [in the condo] that my daughter’s toys were all over the living room.”

Buyers like the Pastkos see townhomes as “a bridge” between a cramped apartment and a standalone house with a white picket fence and a yard, says the NAHB’s chief economist, Robert Dietz.

The Pastkos have plenty of room to breathe in their 2,200-square-foot townhouse, but it’s still not their ideal situation.

“We want to buy a [standalone] house eventually, in five to seven years,” says Julie, explaining that that purchase would be too much to handle financially right now. Julie, 33, works in sales for a health insurance company, and Zach, 35, is a consumer marketing consultant. The couple spent a little more than $400,000 on their townhouse, which isn’t that much for the Chicago suburbs.

Chicago-based Lexington Homes, which is building the Pastkos’ 24-unit townhouse community, has seen a big change in its clientele in just the past six months. Nearly all of Lexington Homes’ buyers are millennials, and most of them are either recently married or about to wed, says Lexington’s principal, Jeff Benach.

“We’ve seen a big shift since the recession,” he says. “Before, it was mostly empty nesters or divorcees with kids.”

Townhouses are a win-win for builders

For builders, townhouses are a win-win, says Dietz. They take up less space than standalone homes, enabling builders to construct more of them on smaller lots. This is a big deal in metro areas and older suburbs, where land is scarce and expensive. By keeping the land costs down, the builders are able to offer townhomes at a lower price than single-family homes.

“You tend to have really nice townhouse developments built in areas that are running out of land,” says realtor.com’s Smoke. “They should be gaining in popularity as [more] people realize they’re more affordable alternatives to renting.”

By Lew Sichelman on Apr 5, 2017
Site: https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/townhouses-hot-trend/

What an accomplishment! Proud to be awared as a finalist to Rochester’s ‘Best of the Best’ places to reside here in Minnesota. We love our residents!! 

A 60-foot electric-powered bus parked at Rochester’s downtown transit hub caught some eyes Tuesday.

That was the point.

Rochester Public Transit officials parked the bus at the hub, on Second Street Southwest, as a preview of things to come. A similar model is expected to join the city transit fleet by the end next year, said Nick Lemmer, marketing and outreach coordinator for Rochester Public Transit and Parking.

However, since the bus on display isn’t owned by the city and is not in service, the drivers of the 40-foot diesel buses running their routes at the hub needed the space it occupied.

The bus was moved around the corner onto Second Avenue Southwest.

“We got more traffic there, but we were in the way,” Lemmer said.

The large bus still drew onlookers. “The shape, the attractive color, it’s pretty,” said Robert McIntosh.

The bus attracted at least one transit driver who parked the bus he was driving to see the electric bus up close.

Lemmer said the articulated frame gives the bus a tighter turning radius than the 40-foot buses have. The electric motor generates a smoother and quieter ride.

“You hop on the thing now and you hear the air conditioning fan and that’s about it,” Lemmer said.

The bus has about a 150-mile range on a charge, he added. The city’s long-range transit plan calls for nine electric buses to join the fleet.

The first buses will be used for direct routes and not continuous service. One of the buses can carry about 60 people seated and about another 60 people standing. That’s up 50 percent more than the 40-foot diesel buses carry.

“We’re looking to move larger to and from our park and rides,” Lemmer said.

That means the first bus will be put in service twice a day and can be charged between morning and afternoon runs, even though the bus could likely run both routes on a single charge, Lemmer said.

Transit officials have been watching the performance of Duluth’s electric buses to gauge how well they run in the winter. The first electric bus will likely be equipped with a diesel heater for extreme cold running. Running the electric heater shortens the bus’s range, as does the cold weather itself. The Duluth buses have performed well, Lemmer said, and have to deal with more extreme hills than Rochester presents, he added.

A $2.29 million grant through the federal Low- or No-Emission Grant program made purchasing the bus possible and is helping fund a charging station at the city’s bus garage. An expansion project there will accommodate the charging station.

Delivery of the bus from the manufacturer, New Flyer, is still a year or more away because grant requirements and contracts need to be completed before the order is officially placed.

“Once those are done, the order will be placed and the bus will be on its way,” Lemmer said.

Published by John Molseed Post Bulletin

Today, AdvisorSmith, a leading information resource for small businesses, released a study ranking 375 U.S. cities based on their attractiveness for Registered Nurses. The study considered the following data: • Average salaries for registered nurses • Availability of nursing jobs in each city • Cost of living Key Findings • The #1 city for registered nurses was Rochester, Minnesota, which is home to the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit academic medical center. • The top cities in the report hosted regional medical centers that employed many nurses. These medical centers offered substantial career opportunities for registered nurses and also benefited from a combination of high salaries or low costs of living. • The top large cities for Registered Nurses were Modesto, CA, McAllen, TX, and Augusta, GA. The top midsize cities were Rochester, MN, Flint, MI, and Redding, CA. The top small cities were Bay City, MI, Bloomsburg, PA, and Lima, OH. The first choice for Registered Nurses:

Rochester, MN Rank: 1 Annual Wage: $77920 Cost of Living: 101 Location Quotient: 3.26

For the entire list visit, https://menafn.com/1098455881/Rochester-MN-is-the-Best-City-for-Registered-Nurses

Rochester, the home of the Mayo Clinic, ranks as the 47th best small city in the nation, according to a new report published this week by researchers at Resonance Consultancy, which offers advice on real estate, tourism and economic development. The firm ranked America’s large and small cities using data and qualitative assessments in six categories: place, product, promotion, prosperity, people and programming, explained below.

Here is a breakdown of Rochester’s rankings out of 50 cities.

•Place: 35 •Product: 75 •Programming: 85 •People: 24 •Prosperity: 20 •Promotion: 102.

The top two small cities couldn’t be more different — respectively, Honolulu, located on Hawaii’s biggest island, and Omaha, Nebraska, which springs up from the cornfields of the Midwest. The report praised Honolulu for its “unparalleled natural beauty” — no argument there — and Omaha for its booming local economy. Indeed, billionaire Warren Buffett still lives in his modest Midwest home and Omaha is home to eight Fortune 500 companies.

  “Thanks in no small part to Buffett, Omaha earns our #1 ranking for prosperity, with the most Fortune 500s (eight) of any city with less than a million people (earning it another #1 ranking for that category as well),” the report said. “But it’s not just stalwarts like Mutual of Omaha that keep this city bustling: a growing tech sector has earned Omaha the nickname ‘Silicon Prairie.’

” After Omaha, the cities rounding out the top five were Charleston, South Carolina; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. While more than a handful of so-called “best city” rankings are published throughout the year, the Resonancy report stands apart for its comprehensiveness, according to Bloomberg.

It’s “the most comprehensive study of its kind; it identifies cities that are most desirable for locals, visitors, and business people alike, rather than simply looking at livability or tourism appeal,” Bloomberg said.

About The Measurement Categories

The promotion ranking reflects the number of stories, references and recommendations shared online about a city. It includes metrics such as Facebook check-ins, Google search results and TripAdvisor reviews. The place category refers to how people view a city’s natural and built environment. These measurements include the number of sunny days expected, crime rate, number of recommended quality neighborhoods and landmarks, and number of quality parks and outdoor activities are available.

Product was often the most challenging metric for cities, the report said. It looks at major institutions and infrastructure, which can be “expensive and difficult to develop and maintain.” Metrics include number of direct airline destinations served by nearby airports, the number of recommended attractions and museums, the ranking of the best local university and even the number of major sports teams.

The prosperity category assessed metrics such as typical household income and number of Global 500 businesses in a city, while the people category looked at population diversity and educational attainment of residents.

Programming evaluated the “experiential pillars of a great visit.” This includes recommended performing arts, cultural experiences and nightlife, as well as number of great restaurants and shopping venues.

(Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report).