TCB’s editors aren’t the only ones to recognize a resurgence at Fallon. Just after our February cover story came out, Advertising Age put Fallon (owned by Publicis Groupe) among 10 “Ones to Watch”—agencies primed to land on the magazine’s national top-10 “A List” next year. Olson is also “One to Watch.” Ad Age says, “If there’s a single agency that embodies the nascent creative renaissance currently afoot in Minneapolis, it’s independent Olson.”

Mortenson Construction will lead the $150 million renovation of St. Paul’s Union Depot, beginning work later this year to transform the 90-year-old train station into a regional hub for bus, rail, and light-rail transit. The depot hasn’t handled passenger rail since 1971. Parts of the property were sold to the U.S. Postal Service, then bought by the Ramsey County Regional Rail Authority in 2007.

Bachman’s goes vintage: The company’s Richfield, Plymouth, and Eden Prairie locations will launch a new store within a store featuring vintage and repurposed goods (vintage flatwear as plant markers at right). The new shops open March 20.

Carlson will acquire 87 percent of its hotel development partner in India, RHW Hotel Management Services, Ltd., and plans fast-track growth there. The company will go from 28 to 78 hotels in India in the next three years, including Radisson, Country Inns Suites, Park Plaza, and Park Inn properties, and a luxury Regency hotel.

Compatible Technology International, a nonprofit in St. Paul, runs on the volunteer talent of former engineers and food scientists from General Mills, Cargill, Land O’Lakes and other local companies. CTI makes low-cost devices to help people in developing countries process their crops and eradicate hunger. Its latest development: a hand-cranked thresher for pearl millet—a grain that feeds 500 million people and can grow in sub-Saharan Africa, but has a hard-to-crack hull. The device means people no longer have to drive over the grain with their tractors to break open the hulls, and can capture 90 percent of it for use rather than a typical 30 to 40 percent.