Plans for a new Hy-Vee grocery store in Stillwater have fallen through, and the developer of the site at the southeast corner of Minnesota 36 and Manning Avenue is looking for a new grocer to take its spot.

Summit Management’s Mark Lambert said Friday that his company and Hy-Vee have agreed to part ways after seven years of negotiations at the Central Commons site.

“We basically agreed to separate, and I got my site back,” Lambert said. “I felt it was more important for us to have the momentum going forward than to be in a position where we didn’t know when – and if – they were going to build the store.”

Lambert said both parties agreed it wasn’t “the right place and the right time” for Hy-Vee to build there.

“What that means is that I now have a very nice grocer location that I am marketing to other grocery stores,” Lambert said.

Officials from Hy-Vee, based in West Des Moines, Iowa, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Mixed-use development

Plans call for Central Commons, a $50 million mixed-use development, to include 190 units of luxury apartments, retail and a convenience store, Lambert said.

Key to developing the site will be finding a grocery store to anchor the project, he said.

“We know there are several great grocers in the area,” he said. “My hope is to kind of re-grocer the site, if you will, and that we’ll find another grocer that wants that location.”

A site map showing the layout for the Central Commons development on the southeast corner of Minnesota 36 and Manning Avenue in Stillwater. (Courtesy of Summit Management)

The road leading to the development – the 58th Street extension – is scheduled to be completed next spring, “so I’m hoping by summer of 2026, we’ll have full access and a very marketable site,” he said.

The site is being developed to accommodate an up to 95,000-square-foot grocery store and 4,000-square-foot convenience store on the property, which the city of Stillwater annexed from Stillwater Township in 2020. There’s also the possibility of a hotel, more apartments and additional retail, he said.

Prime location

An aerial photograph taken Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, shows the site of the future Central Commons development, located on the southeast corner of Minnesota 36 and Manning Avenue in Stillwater. Pictured on the left is the future home of the new Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater. (Courtesy of Summit Management)

The site is in a prime location, just south of the new $400 million Lakeview Hospital campus at the northeast corner of Minnesota 36 and Manning Avenue in Stillwater.

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“We’re still excited about (the project),” Lambert said. “I mean, it’s an amazing corner. It’s right across from the new hospital. … While we’re disappointed we weren’t able to continue our partnership with Hy-Vee, we’re excited about identifying a new partner to continue the work we’ve done the last seven years on this site.”

Stillwater Mayor Ted Kozlowski said he is confident that another grocer will decide to build at the site.

“I really think there will be something cool that lands in that spot, so I’m not too worried about the future of it,” he said. “There are a lot of really cool options. I was just at the new Kowalski’s they built over in Edina. Boy, would I love to see that in Stillwater, like, that is the sexiest grocery store I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s really, really nice. I’m ready to call the CEO.”

Kowalski’s operates a store in Oak Park Heights, just east of the Central Commons site.

LOCKPORT, Manitoba – Just about the time you think you’ve seen everything, something new comes along that leaves you shaking your head.

Fear not, this isn’t a rant; it’s all good.

Quite amazing, really.

The stretch of Red River from the St. Andrews Lock and Dam in Lockport and downstream to Lake Winnipeg is one of the best channel catfish destinations on the planet, bar none. It’s a place I try to fish at least once every year and where I boated my “PB” (personal best) catfish, a 33-pound behemoth, several years ago.

Catfish that big don’t come along very often – even at Lockport – but fish in the 20-pound range are relatively common. That’s the kind of potential awaiting catfish anglers who fish the Red near Lockport.

Providing, of course, they have the right bait.

Historically, before going to Lockport, U.S. fishermen would catch goldeyes or buy suckers at home, freezing them to use for cutbait, or catch frogs and freeze them for the trip across the border. Beginning in late July and continuing well into August, the big Lockport cats tend to find frogs particularly delectable.

That all changed a few years back, when Canada banned the import of nightcrawlers and all aquatic bait, whether live, dead or frozen, as part of an effort to minimize the risk of introducing aquatic invasive species into the country.

You can catch goldeyes and frogs in Canada, of course, but catching bait takes time away from catching catfish.

With that dilemma as a backdrop, longtime fishing buddy Brad Durick, a Grand Forks catfish guide, his 15-year-old son Braden and I found ourselves scrounging for bait before a recent fishing trip to Lockport.

A Canadian friend who lives near the river gave us some goldeyes he’d caught a few days earlier below the Lockport Dam, and our host had some of her late husband’s old frozen bait in her freezer. A longtime friend and fishing partner – and a real stickler when it came to catfish bait – Jim Stinson died in March.

Given the bait challenges, Durick decided the trip would be the perfect time to experiment with a chicken bait concoction he’d heard about back in 2011 from a client who lived in North Carolina.

This wasn’t some vile, rotten-smelling stuff that uninitiated anglers might think of when they think of catfishing. This “recipe” called for cutting up fresh chicken breasts and slathering them with garlic powder and strawberry Jell-O powder.

Why strawberry Jello-O powder and not some other flavor, I’m not sure, but when in doubt, follow the recipe.

This was all new to me.

Stopping at a Canadian grocery store on the way to Lockport, we bought two packages of fresh chicken breasts, garlic powder (which I’d forgotten to bring from home) and two boxes of strawberry Jell-O powder. We pondered whether we should get sugar-free Jell-O or the sweetened variety.

Ultimately, we chose the sweetened variety.

We hit the water that first afternoon with the aforementioned goldeyes and old freezer-burnt Canadian bait, fully expecting we’d be up early the next morning to try catching frogs in a spot we’d heard would produce.

I missed a fish on a frog that had been in our Canadian host’s freezer for who knows how many years, and we’d landed a couple of catfish on the old frozen bait when Durick decided to hook on a chunk of the “Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken” mixture he’d whipped up before we hit the water.

None of us were expecting much.

But when he caught a catfish on the chicken bait – followed by another and another and another – it wasn’t long before all three of us had made the switch.

The catfish absolutely loved it.

Based on what I could find online, the mixture makes good catfish bait because the garlic powder’s potent aroma and the amino acids in the Jell-O powder attract catfish from a distance. The chicken provides a good base for holding the mixture, while the Jell-O powder absorbs moisture, making the chicken tougher and more likely to stay on the hook.

Still, even though Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken works in the South, I was skeptical that it would work in Lockport, where catfish seem to be even more bait specific than they are along the Grand Forks stretch of the Red River. I’ve seen times at Lockport when, if the catfish are going on frogs, all you’re going to do if you don’t have frogs is watch neighboring boats that have frogs catch catfish.

I’m not skeptical any more.

Over two partial days and one full day of fishing – roughly 15 hours total – the three of us boated 53 catfish up to 25 pounds. All but maybe half a dozen of those catfish came on Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken. Durick even had to mix up a second batch the evening before our third and final day on the water, an outing in which we boated 28 of our 53 catfish in about four hours of fishing.

He was cackling about the bait and how well it worked all weekend.

Whether this not-so-secret hot, new bait is the “be all-end all” for future catfish excursions to Lockport – and whether it works in Grand Forks – remains to be seen, but the results from our most recent trip were too convincing to say it was a fluke.

In three days on the water, the results were the same every time: Strawberry Jell-O Garlic Chicken ruled the roost.

Go figure.

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is planning to remove nearly 700 Guatemalan children who had come to the U.S. without their parents, according to a letter sent Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.

The removals would violate the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s “child welfare mandate and this country’s long-established obligation to these children,” Wyden told Angie Salazar, acting director of the office within the Department of Health and Human Services that is responsible for migrant children who arrive in the U.S. alone.

“Unaccompanied children are some of the most vulnerable children entrusted to the government’s care,” the Democratic senator wrote, asking for the deportation plans to be terminated. “In many cases, these children and their families have had to make the unthinkable choice to face danger and separation in search of safety.”

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Quoting unidentified whistleblowers, Wyden’s letter said children who do not have a parent or legal guardian as a sponsor or who don’t have an asylum case already underway, “will be forcibly removed from the country.”

It is another step in the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration enforcement efforts, which include plans to surge officers to Chicago for an immigration crackdown, ramping up deportations and ending protections for people who have had permission to live and work in the United States.

The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the latest move, which was first reported by CNN. The Guatemalan government declined to comment.

“This move threatens to separate children from their families, lawyers, and support systems, to thrust them back into the very conditions they are seeking refuge from, and to disappear vulnerable children beyond the reach of American law and oversight,” Wyden’s letter says.

Due to their young age and the trauma unaccompanied immigrant children have often experienced getting to the U.S., their treatment is one of the most sensitive issues in immigration. Advocacy groups already have sued to ask courts to halt new Trump administration vetting procedures for unaccompanied children, saying the changes are keeping families separated longer and are inhumane.

In July, the head of Guatemala’s immigration service said the government was looking to repatriate 341 unaccompanied minors who were being held in U.S. facilities.

“The idea is to bring them back before they reach 18 years old so that they are not taken to an adult detention center,” Guatemala Immigration Institute Director Danilo Rivera said at the time. He said it would be done at Guatemala’s expense and would be a form of voluntary return.

The plan was announced by President Bernardo Arévalo, who said then that the government had a moral and legal obligation to advocate for the children. His comments came days after U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Guatemala.

Migrant children traveling without their parents or guardians are handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement when they are encountered by officials along the U.S.-Mexico border. Once in the U.S., they often live in government-supervised shelters or with foster care families until they can be released to a sponsor — usually a family member — living in the country.

They can request asylum, juvenile immigration status or visas for victims of sexual exploitation.

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The idea of repatriating such a large number of children to their home country raised concerns with activists who work with children navigating the immigration process.

“We are outraged by the Trump administration’s renewed assault on the rights of immigrant children,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, president and CEO of Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “We are not fooled by their attempt to mask these efforts as mere ‘repatriations.’ This is yet another calculated attempt to sever what little due process remains in the immigration system.”

Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas. AP writers Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City and Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

Minnesota United vs. Portland Timbers

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Allianz Field
Stream: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+
Radio: KSTP-AM, 1500
Weather: 75 degrees, partly cloudy, 4 mph north wind
Betting line: MNUFC minus-145; draw plus-310; Portland plus-333

Form: Second-place Loons (14-6-8, 50 points) have won two straight, including a 3-1 win over Salt Lake on Saturday. Sixth-place Portland (10-0-8, 38 points) is winless in three but battled to a scoreless draw with San Diego last weekend.

Recent matchup: The Loons gave up a 92nd minute goal in a 1-1 draw in July at a charged Providence Park, which was holding a 50th anniversary reunion. Anthony Markanich gave Minnesota a lead in the 77th minute, but United couldn’t hold on.

Look-ahead: There are several ways MNUFC can clinch a spot in the MLS Cup Playoffs on Saturday, the simplest being with a win. But a draw will work, too, if combined with: a Colorado loss or draw at Kansas City; a San Jose loss at Austin; a Colorado loss at Kansas City and a Houston loss or draw at St. Louis; or a San Jose draw at Austin.

Check-in: Only one of the four new players MNUFC signed in the summer transfer window will be available to play Saturday, forward Mamadou Dieng. The other three — Nectarios Triantis, Dominik Fitz and Alexis Farina — are still waiting on work visas. Their targeted first games will be after the international break, at first-place San Diego on Sept. 13.

Scouting report: Portland signed two Designated Players, winger Kristoffer Velde from Olympiacos and midfielder Felipe Carballo from Gremio.

“They’ve added real quality to a team that has quality,” Loons head coach Eric Ramsay said. “First and foremost, we have to make sure we deal with those top individual players.”

Prediction: Minnesota has one of the stingiest defenses in the West. Portland has not been prolific in front of goal, and is still working in its new attackers. Loons win 1-0.

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