Rochester, Minnesota - Home of the Mayo Clinic

[kcexpress69]

Ames, IA...getting warmed up

Mason City, IA - A little bit of FLR


My next stop was across Iowa into Minnesota. I have never been to Rochester before, and although I've seen pictures, I greatly underestimated
the size of the downtown. So I waited till the next morning to take pictures. When I went through there at night, the downtown was very lively and quite
a bit was going on. I wished I could have taken a couple of pictures, but I was pretty tired at that point, and no sooner than I got inside my motel
room, it began to pour down rain. It was cool and overcast the next day which was fine with me.

Rochester is a fast growing city in southeast Minnesota estimated at around 107,000 people. It is home to the Mayo Clinic. The largest non for profit
medical practice and research in the world. Most of downtown Rochester contains buildings dedicated to the clinic. I pretty much stayed downtown.
So here we go!!

Sorry, I wanted to get some nice panoramic shots, but couldn't find a good enough place to shoot one. But I did get a couple of decent shots!!


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A duck decided to hang out with me in one of the parking lots


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The Mayo Clinic wasn't the only hospital downtown


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City Hall


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Walkways seem to cover downtown


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The western wing of the main building of the Mayo Clinic. This thing is massive!!


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The Plummer Building, built in 1926, was once the tallest in Minnesota for a few years.


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This building is also part of the Mayo Clinic


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Finally made it to a parking garage. Even then, the main building is so massive, I couldn't fit it onto my camera.


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Something new going up


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I believe that the residential tower in the background is also part of the Mayo Clinic


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A nice looking hotel


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The east wing of the Mayo Clinic


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Another downtown hospital


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The entrance to the main building


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One more angle of the Plummer Building


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Why not just build over the street??


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A downtown mall..(of course)


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Another angle of the downtown Methodist Hospital


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A nice looking residential tower, is the tallest in Rochester. Not sure of the exact height, but it's under 400 ft.


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Overlooking Broadway, from one of the walkways


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The Zumbro River cuts through the south side of downtown


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A railroad spur cuts through as well


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A collection of buildings above the treetops


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A 5k run was about to start


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The Mayo Civic Center. Very nice looking!!


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The massive government complex on the other side of the river


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One last shot before I leave. The best panoramic that I could do.


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Well, that's it. On to my next stop. Hope you enjoyed my thread!!

[Urbanguy]

Great pics! It is a lot larger than I expected. Thanks for sharing.

[DetroitSky]

Rochester has interested me for a while. I need to get out there, it definitely looks bigger than 107,000. Nice photos!

[The ATX]

I lived in Rochester for 8 years. It does have a pretty decent skyline for a city of barely 100,000. But it's pretty much a Mayo Clinic company town. Fortunately the Clinic is doing well and so is Rochester. The best thing about Rochester IMHO is that it's only ~75 miles from the Twin Cities. So I spent a lot of my weekends in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

[Ex-Ithacan]

That is quite an impressive array of talls for a city of ~ 100,000. I really like the Plummer building. Glad you decided to head up that way, thanks for the tour kc.

[OhioGuy]

It's kind of surprising that such a world renowned institution like the Mayo Clinic essentially exists in the middle of nowhere. I could certainly see it in Minneapolis, but Southwest Minnesota? I wonder how they were first able to attract the type of talent needed to grow the clinic into what it is today? Having said that, it looks like Rochester has done a nice job in taking full advantage of the Mayo Clinic and has created a relatively nice and seemingly compact downtown. Thanks for sharing these photos!

[MNMike]

That would be Southeast MN...and it is only 1.5 hours from Minneapolis.

[kcexpress69]

Originally Posted by OhioGuy

It's kind of surprising that such a world renowned institution like the Mayo Clinic essentially exists in the middle of nowhere. I could certainly see it in Minneapolis, but Southwest Minnesota? I wonder how they were first able to attract the type of talent needed to grow the clinic into what it is today? Having said that, it looks like Rochester has done a nice job in taking full advantage of the Mayo Clinic and has created a relatively nice and seemingly compact downtown. Thanks for sharing these photos!

There's a fairly lengthy article on Wikipedia about the establishment of the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic was established in 1889. I don't believe the founder, William Mayo, realized it to be as big and successful as it ended up being. Here's the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayo_Clinic

Thanks for the comments so far!!

[whatsthepoint13]

A very interesting and for me, educational tour. I too didn't realize how substantial Rochester is. It certainly looks Minnesotan architecturally and layout-wise. I hope no one takes offense to this, but to me it feels like something is missing here. Anyway, always a delight to see somewhere new! Thanks!

[MplsTodd]

Nice tour KCExpress!

In addition to the clinic and Methodist Hospital downtown, Rochester also has historically been reported to be one of the largest hospitals in the world: St. Mary's Hospital located on 2nd Street SW about 1 1.5 miles west of downtown. In addition, although the medical employment sector dwarfs all other employers, IBM has had a significant presence in Rochester since the 1950s or 1960s.

I'd like to point out a few minor details:

1. The photo listed as being another hospital in downtown Rochester ("Mayo Clinic isn't the only hospital in downtown" 318 Commons) is actually a new student dormitory for the recently established University of Minnesota at Rochester. This new branch of the U of M should bring some more activity into the downtown area.

2. The photo listed as City Hall is the old City Hall. I think its now used as private office space. The current City Hall is within that huge government center that you photographed on the other side of the river.

[montréaliste]

It looks to me like a relentless bland-o-rama has set in there. Clean though.

[pdxtex]

i think i spotted ricky's sh!tmobile from trailer park boys. see photo 3 from top. lower left.

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures. The medical footprint is huge there.

[dc_denizen]

Needs more trees and landscaping on major thoroughfares, but otherwise, nice city!

for the pics....thank you!

[StoJa]

My hometown! If you lived there your parents worked for Mayo or IBM. Those two companies employ nearly 70,000 of the 110,000 citizens (210,000 metro) in the city and surrounding suburbs/communities. Mayo has plans for a couple more downtown towers in the near future. The skyline should really grow in the next decade. Also, the main Mayo building (the glass facade known as the Gonda Building) is structurally built to go up to 30 stories. It sits at 20 now, I believe.

IBM has a huge, sprawling campus in the NW part of town. One of the largest in the country. The processing chip for the XBox was built there.

Also, you missed the chance to snap photos of St. Mary's Hospital, just down the street from Mayo. It's the largest private hospital in the world. It's MASSIVE. A half dozen buildings on a campus-style setting.

When you consider Rochester being in the middle of nowhere, essentially, the number of celebrities, world leaders, dignitaries, etc that visit Mayo each year is really mind blowing. My mom worked at St Mary's and always had stories for us. King Hussien of Jordan came every year for a check-up and took exceptional care of all his nurses/doctors. He basically funded our Christmas one year with the financial gift(s) he gave to his medical team, which included my mother.

[IMBY]

Hometown, also! Left there in Spring of 1972. Was there when they tacked 8 floors onto the Mayo Clinic building.

One of the most urbanized mid-sized cities in the country!

I grew up on the poor side of town, the SE area. The SW area has always been where the moneyed live!

Being Mayo is the big oligarch in downtown Rochester, and as you'd expect, they call the shots!

When I took an Economic Geography class at Rochester Community College back in 1970, my professor rattled off all the names of big corporations that sought to relocate to Rochester, but only IBM made the cutting list. Had they allowed the others in, this city could have been a truly large city by now! I'm sure Mayo had a role in deciding who could enter their domain, and who couldn't!