Simone Biles performed her floor routine at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials to Taylor Swift, and in the process, she helped Minneapolis come close to matching a hotel record set one year ago, when Swift’s Eras tour came to town.

Minneapolis hotels recorded more than $11.6 million in total guest room revenue last week, June 23-29, according to Meet Minneapolis Convention & Visitors Association. That’s the highest weekly revenue mark of 2024, and the highest since Swifty mania descended on Minneapolis in June 2023, also coinciding with the Twin Cities Pride Festival and resulting in $12 million in hotel revenue.

The figure released Wednesday doesn’t include Sunday, June 30, the final night of the gymnastics competition. But with one day left to tally for June, Minneapolis hotels recorded more than $40.9 million in guest revenue—a monthly figure not hit since October 2018, when the total was $41.5 million, Meet Minneapolis reported.

Hotel occupancy in Minneapolis totaled 87.5% on June 29—the 11th highest of the year. And for the week of June 23-29, hotel occupancy was the third highest since 2020, according to the convention and visitors association. Higher hotel demand weeks included March 3-9, 2024 when the Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament was in town at the same time as the American Physical Society March Meeting, and August 27-Sept. 2, 2023 for the Gay Softball World Series and Minnesota State Fair.

Of course, Biles and local hotels weren’t last weekend’s only winners. Tom’s Watch Bar, just a block from Target Center, saw crowds nearly quadruple its average weekend—best since the Timberwolves were in the playoffs, operating partner Amanda Neitzke said. “Overall, I think Minneapolis is on it’s way back,” she said. “We still have a ways to go, but we’re definitely in our comeback era.” So far this year, sales at Tom’s are outpacing 2023, Neitzke said.

During the gymnastics trials, more than 60 local businesses participated in Promenade Du Nord, a Nicollet Mall activation produced by the Minnesota Sports and Events commission, in partnership with market curator Mich Berthiaume. “The energy and buzz downtown was incredible,” said Berthiaume, who teamed up with Minnesota Sports and Events on markets for the 2018 Super Bowl and, earlier this year, for the Big Ten basketball tournaments.

“Minnesota Sports and Events always focuses on our local community,” Berthiaume said. “You might not have had tickets to the gymnastics trials, but you could go downtown and have a complete experience.”

Rebecca Sansone, who owns St. Paul vintage shop The Mustache Cat, jumped at the opportunity to showcase her goods at Promenade Du Nord. “It felt like a win/win from a branding perspective. Building community is important to us and this felt aligned with what the event was doing for Minneapolis.” Sansone said the shoppers she spoke to during the four-day market were a mix of tourists and locals. “We had folks coming down to Nicollet Mall during their lunch break, gymnastics fans in their USA gear, and folks joining us before, during, and after Pride.” Focusing her event merchandise on smaller items that would be easy to pack or carry—coasters, bottle stoppers, magnets—drove a high volume of sales, she said.

Staffing a booth at a market is never easy for a small business, but fashion designer Danielle Everine said it was well worth the effort—for her brand, and for the city. “I met gymnasts, coaches, and fans from all over the world,” Everine said. “When I travel, I always seek out local markets. Promenade Du Nord gave downtown Minneapolis a little je ne sais quoi. I’d love to see a permanent artisan market in Minneapolis.”

Hundreds of Minneapolis park employees are set to strike over the Fourth of July — one of the busiest days for the city’s green spaces.

The union, which represents more than 300 workers who help keep the parks clean and safe, announced strike plans Tuesday. They say the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s latest contract proposal lacks sufficient wage raises and hazard protections — and includes new language that hampers transparency and bias safeguards.

“We’re not asking for special treatment, we’re just asking for fair treatment,” said LIUNA Local 363 business manager AJ Lange at a press conference Tuesday.

That announcement followed more than 15 hours of negotiating with the park board Monday and another seven months of failed negotiations prior. Lange said the union requested another bargaining date, but was met with a refusal. He said workers will strike for one week and are prepared to file another strike notice if the board doesn’t “come back to the table with a fair offer.”

The MPRB argues negotiations have been reasonable and in good faith — and that the final offer is “competitive, fair and equitable.” They are prepared to adjust maintenance service around a smaller staff.

The board also says employees who strike will not be able to return to their job until an agreement is ratified.

“We asked — and still ask — that they bring our last, best and final offer to their members for a vote,” said Robin Smothers, a spokesperson for the board, over email.

The union says they are prepared to file an unfair labor practice charge with the state, after receiving at least one legal opinion from Minneapolis-based law firm Cummins and Cummins that barring striking employees from returning to work constitutes an “illegal threat of a discriminatory lockout.”

Smothers said in a statement that the MPRB legal counsel’s position is that their approach is not an unfair labor practice and they plan to go forward with that plan.

Safety during encampment cleanups an issue

A week before the latest negotiations, the union rallied outside of Lyndale Farmstead Park. That’s where Minneapolis’s Parks superintendents have historically resided, starting with Theodore Wirth in 1910.

The current resident is Al Bangoura. While his superintendent’s salary has climbed alongside inflation, the union argues their positions have not matched pace, falling behind while the park’s reputation consistently soars high on national rankings.

The park board has proposed a 10.25 percent wage increase over three years, including a 2.75 percent increase the first year and a $1.00 market adjustment for 13 positions over the following two years.

Union leadership say they asked for a $5.00 market adjustment and the board’s proposed wage still means some positions would lag behind other cities.

The increase would bring the maximum pay for a “parkkeeper” from $30.99 to $35.52 by 2026, which remains lower than parks maintenance employees at 19 competitive suburbs, according to a League of Minnesota Cities’ 2023 local government salary survey.

“MPRB leadership believes it is vitally important that employee wages and benefits are fair and competitive throughout the organization,” according to a statement, which pointed to a policy of 37 paid days off per year for employees with up to four years of service.

Parkkeeper Lanel Lane provides for a family of four, including a teenaged son and 6-year-old daughter who grew up playing soccer on the park’s greenery. Despite being a dual-income household, Lane says his family doesn’t have enough money to cover the bills or keep up on car repairs.

“I don’t have no money in savings right now,” said the 40-year old. “I’m not living paycheck-to-paycheck, I’m living a check behind paycheck-to-paycheck. If the wages go up, I think we can stay afloat. That’s all we’re asking.”

Lane says he’s been with Minneapolis parks for more than a decade, arriving at 5 a.m. daily in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, during 2020 riots that followed the murder of George Floyd and regularly, when tasked to clean up homeless encampments.

It can be a grueling job, he said. He’s frequently cleaning up broken glass, needles and feces, ensuring the public spaces are safe to enjoy. On one of his most difficult days, Lane said he watched a woman die from an overdose. But like any other day on the job, he pushed on.

“Just to see the poverty was disheartening,” he said. “It touched me, man. I cried a few times just thinking about how people are living out here.”

One major issue the union has with the proposed contract is insufficient hazard protections. The board offered eligible employees safety glasses and a hazard pay hike from $0.75 to $1.50 per hour for workers while performing “encampment clean-ups” with “visible biohazardous material and sharps.”

The union claims the safety glasses provision was a previous “takeaway.” LIUNA Local 363 manager Lange said Tuesday he wanted retaliation protections for workers who raise safety concerns, as well as the ability for workers to request a risk assessment and halt work until that assessment has been completed.

The fear of risky situations is something parkkeeper Hunter Hoppe says he faces on the regular.

“There’s been homeless encampments we’ve had to take down that personally hurt my heart because you don’t know what they’re going through,” Hoppe said. “But even when you’re doing that you don’t know if someone living there is going to come up and potentially get mad at you guys even though we did give them a notice.”

‘Not a middle class job’

Arborist Scott Jaeger said he’s turning 40 soon and had hoped to buy a home by now. What was once feasible for the generation above him feels totally out of reach. He rents an apartment with his partner in Minneapolis where the average rent eats nearly 40 percent of his monthly income, he said.

“I’m a certified arborist working for the best park system in the nation and I can’t afford a home. It’s sad,” he said. “It’s not a middle class job anymore.”

Jaeger wanted to be a civil servant, but the career doesn’t seem sustainable now.

“We love being civil servants,” Jaeger said. “That’s why all of us got into this job. It’s just, eventually your love for helping the community will stop once you can’t afford to pay the bills or live in the city that you serve. So eventually, that’s going to stop.”