Wisconsin buyer scores Tom Petters' Muhammad Ali collection

Among the little-known aspects of Ponzi artist Tom Petters was his fascination with prize fighter Muhammad Ali. Maybe the former Wayzata businessman saw a bit of fighter in both of them.

In any case, over the years Petters assembled a broad collection of Ali memorabilia, from boxing gloves bearing the autograph of both Ali and his former name, Cassius Clay. The collection contains a picture of Ali as Clay with the Beatles and the robe Ali wore in a 1976 fight with Jimmy Young.

Earlier this month the collection was sold by court-appointed receiver Doug Kelley to a Wisconsin man for $31,000. An appraiser told Kelley the collection was valued between $29,000 and $50,800 and suggested it would be best to sell the collection as a whole. The Wisconsin offer was the only one to deliver the knockout price.

Fallon's landmark and groundbreaking work for BMW in the early 2000s was honored last week as "Best of the Digital Decade" by One Show Interactive, a trade show competition for advertising and marketing.

The advertising campaign was Internet-based and featured a series of short (eight to 10 minutes), action-packed movies directed by the likes of John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee and Guy Richie and starring box-office names like Clive Owen, Madonna, James Brown, Mickey Rourke and Don Cheadle.

The BMW Films, as the series was called, was selected by more than 100 judges as one of the 10 best interactive campaigns of the past 10 years.

Shamrock Development Inc. and Minneapolis city planners are sparring over a patch of land that the city owns near the Guthrie Theater.

The city is asking $437,850 for the spot, which sits across the street from Gold Medal Park near the river and Interstate 35W. It's one of the last Mill District properties to be developed.

Price is the main sticking point but not the only one, said Miles Mercer, a project coordinator handling the sale with Minneapolis Community Planning and Economic Development. Mercer wouldn't describe the other issues.

Jim Stanton, the veteran developer who heads Shamrock, is tight-lipped. He won't say how important the land is to his plans for a new condo project next to the site. He would only say he wants the matter resolved.

Shamrock has proposed building a 150-unit condo building next to the parcel tentatively called Park Vista, and bought two bank-owned parcels on 12th Avenue S. and one at 1102 2nd St. S. for the project. The parcels had gone back to the bank after developer Steve Frenz tried unsuccessfully to develop a large upscale apartment complex there called the Marmont.

Stanton said he has no idea when he might break ground on Park Vista. Last fall he tangled with the city over the allowable number of parking spaces for the project.

HOM will open Gabberts stores and design studios in early 2011 in tandem with HOM stores in Sioux City, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, S.D.

The Sioux City location will occupy an expanded second level of the HOM Furniture showroom in a recently renovated Younkers department store in downtown. Gabberts will open a storefront adjacent to the newly expanded 80,000-square-foot HOM Furniture in Sioux Falls. Construction is underway at both locations.

"We see many opportunities to deliver Gabberts' design expertise and product selection to more customers across the five-state Upper Midwest service area," said CEO Rod Johansen of HOM. "We will continue to ... leverage the 63 years of Gabberts-brand heritage and an award-winning interior design team to markets currently underserved at the premium level."

HOM says there is more Gabberts expansion to come. Gabberts, founded in Minneapolis in 1946, maintains its flagship showroom at the Galleria in Edina.