Lunch on wheels rolls onto U campus
​Coolers deliver meals in robot pilot program.
By CALEB FRAVEL For the Minnesota Star Tribune

Last month, the busy sidewalks of the University of Minnesota gained new commuters: little white robots, carrying meals across the Minneapolis campus.

These futuristic lunch coolers on wheels have been rolling around for more than a month, delivering about 1,200 orders to hungry college students, according to the U. California based Starship Technologies operates its robots on more than 30 college campuses, via its app. A first for the city of Minneapolis, critics of the one year pilot program worry the robots will impede traffic and take jobs from actual workers.
But students enjoy the quicker, and sometimes less expensive, alternative to apps such as Door- Dash.

"There are a lot of people who have very tight schedules ... in buildings that don't offer food service, and they do need some options for dining," said University Services Vice President Alice Roberts-Davis.

"And so the robots were a great opportunity for us to provide food service coming to them, instead of them having to go to food service."
The 15 robots journey between Coffman Memorial Union — with its various dining options including Panda Express, Starbucks and Erbert and Gerbert's — and the East Bank and West Bank. Students can order from restaurants through the Starship app, which charges a delivery fee of about $2.50 and an additional fee of 10% of the order value. There's no need to tip, and students can use their meal plan for payment.

The app estimates a robot will deliver an order to a pinned location in about 30 minutes.

Food is secure until the customer unlocks the robot with the app. In the event someone attempts to pick up the 80-pound machine, sirens sound until it's put down, all the while Starship tracks it to the nearest inch.

Starship robots only make deliveries on campus property, but they travel on city and county pathways, according to the Minneapolis City Council. On Aug. 15, the council approved a yearlong pilot program for delivery robots. But so far Starship's campus endeavor is the only use of one of the three available permits.

Starship — working with Chartwells Higher Education, the on-campus dining manager — said its robots are like pedestrians, going on sidewalks, crossing intersections, hopping curbs and powering through rain and snow. Each robot's top speed is 4 mph, just below the City Council's imposed 5-mph limit.

At an Aug. 15 City Council meeting, Council Member Robin Wonsley, whose ward includes the U, expressed concerns about the robots' effect on workers and streets and sidewalks. Wonsley voted to approve the pilot, so the city could be ahead of the curve on these new technologies, she said.

"When the new robot program was first presented to my office, I was disappointed to hear that these labor issues did not appear to have been proactively considered by the University," Wonsley said in a statement.

The U actually believes the service will increase its demand for labor, Roberts-Davis said. As students place more orders, dining services will need to hire more employees, like those who make the food and run orders to the robots.

Marc Bellemare, an applied economics professor, said robots like these are the next step in the food-delivery revolution, which has created a rapid expansion in the number of available delivery options through apps such as DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats.

"It is coming whether one likes it or not," Bellemare said. "The question is what are going to be the anticipated effects of that on all kinds of things?"

In the food-delivery industry, Bellemare said automation of labor likely will cause unemployment in the short-term for groups who often rely on these jobs, including recent immigrants, students and those with less education.

In the long run, other jobs likely will crop up for these workers to fill, he added, saying society has "consistently innovated, and the unemployment rate hasn't gone up to 100% over the course of human existence."

Using a combination of cameras and GPS technologies, Starship robots operate at "Level 4" autonomy on a five-point scale.

They travel in pre-mapped areas, but a person can take control when needed, according to Starship. Neural networks, cameras, radars and sensors form what Starship called a "situational-awareness bubble" around the robot.

Sometimes, students can burst the robot's bubble.

"They stop like literally every two feet because it will be a big crowd of people, and it's trying to get through it," said first-year student Ben Leahy, who saw his friend's order arrive to their dorm about 20 minutes late.

Roberts-Davis said it's good the robots err on the side of safety and caution.

"That, to me, is worth waiting a few extra minutes for your food," Robertson-Davis said, "to make sure it's going to get to you, and it's going to get to you in a way that is not harming anybody else on the route."

Caleb Fravel is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Short-lived mortgage rate dip fueled spike in home sales Twin Cities buyers signed 3,968 purchase agreements, a 14% year-over-year increase. REAL ESTATE AGENT MAX BAKER SETS OUT FLOWERS, SPARKLING WATER AND CHOCOLATES IN PREPARATION FOR A SHOWING. Story by JIM BUCHTA • Photo by AARON LAVINSKY • The Minnesota Star Tribune

Fueled by a temporary dip in mortgage rates and an increase in listings, house shoppers in the Twin Cities went on a fall buying spree in October.
Buyers signed 3,968 purchase agreements, a whopping 14% year-over-year increase, according to local and state real estate associations.

New listings were up nearly 9% year over year. This leaves shoppers a choice of 9,885 listings on the market, 7.8% more than at this time last year.

Those gains helped take some of the stress and pressure off buyers, giving them more options — and more time to shop.

"Things are as normal as they've been in a long time," said Matt Baker, a Twin Cities sales agent. "People have choices, and they can take some time."

There's more negotiating as well. Sellers accepted offers that were 97.8% of the list price in the metro — down from last year. On average, those offers were accepted after 45 days on the market, six days longer than the previous month and eight days longer than last year.
The October surge in pending sales was especially notable given that pendings have increased by double digits only once since early 2021 as buyers and sellers grappled with higher mortgage rates, which hovered slightly above 7%.

Closings, a reflection of the offers accepted about two to three months ago, were up only about 5%. Across the metro, those closings fetched a median price of $380,000, a 4.1% annual increase and one of the biggest gains all year.

Statewide, the trends have been similar.
Baker, a veteran agent and the former president of Coldwell Banker Realty, said the market has been remarkably resilient.
"It's extraordinary that the real estate industry improved as well as it did given the magnitude of the rate increase," he said. "It plateaued, versus a meaningful drop."

After six weeks of steady but gradual increases, rates have leveled off in recent weeks. On Thursday, Freddie Mac said the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.78%, down a bit from the previous week. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 7.44%.

Though rates are now at 30-year historical averages, buyers and sellers are still adjusting to higher borrowing costs that have eroded affordability and made buyers less aggressive and sellers more anxious.

Luke McGregor hated the recent experience of selling his home.
"The buyer seems to have more leverage," he said.

When McGregor and his now-wife had the opportunity to move to Walker, Luke's hometown, they listed their six bedroom house in Plymouth in early spring for $975,000. Contrary to what they expected, it didn't sell.

They did get an offer the first week it was on the market, but because of various terms they didn't accept it. They regret that decision.
"Hindsight is 20/20. Your first offer is typically your best offer," said Luke McGregor.

They took the house off the market and in the summer hired Baker and Ellyn Wolfenson to take on the listing. Baker had the house professionally staged and did minor cosmetic touchups. He also put together a full marketing plan, including open houses.


After a price reduction and a couple of months on the market, the couple finally got an offer and closed last month.

McGregor's experience demonstrates the importance of making sure a house is in tiptop shape and priced competitively, Baker said.

"The market has definitely shifted, and putting a property on the market and sorting through offers was a point in time which wasn't normal," Baker said.

The market also is far more nuanced than it was a year ago with demand varying dramatically by price range and location. Some listings are still getting multiple offers and selling for more than list price, while others are lingering on the market and selling at discounted prices.

"We're seeing different activity in different price points, areas and segments such as condos or new construction," Jamar Hardy, president of Minneapolis Area Realtors, said in a statement. "What's impacting $1 million-plus buyers isn't necessarily on the mind of a $300,000 buyer, and condos and new construction are better supplied and more accessible than the existing singlefamily market, for example."

[email protected].
PENDING SALES ROSE DURING OCTOBER
A dip in mortgage rates helped buoy pending homes sales during October.

AT 75, STILL TOILING IN FLORIDA HEAT Story by PATRICIA MAZZEI • ​Photos by SCOTT MCINTYRE • The New York Times NO CHOICE BUT TO KEEP WORKING, JOSE DELGADO WORKS IN A SWEET POTATO FIELD DURING A HEAT ADVISORY IN FLORIDA CITY IN AUGUST.

FLORIDA CITY, FLA. - The heatstroke that Jose Delgado suffered six years ago after working in a sweet potato field in South Florida left him with damaged kidneys. It happened again two years later. His doctor, he said, warned that his heart might not survive another episode.

He is 75 now and still waking up at 5:30 a.m. six days a week to labor in the fields, putting his wizened body through more and more days of extreme heat.

Last year, the National Weather Service issued heat advisories for Miami-Dade County on 41 days. This year, it has done so on 63 days, most recently Sept.

30. Over two days in May, the heat index reached 112 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking the previous record by 11 degrees.

Mid-October is typically the start of a drier, somewhat cooler period in South Florida. For Delgado, it is a moment of relief. But it is also a time to reflect on what could have been.

Delgado used to hope that his story would move policymakers to enact heat protections for outdoor workers. He no longer believes it will.

"They're in cool air all day," he said of lawmakers, his voice tinged with bitterness. "They don't think about who labors to put food on their table."

His first heatstroke came in 2018, when he lost consciousness and had to be hospitalized.

The episode inspired WeCount, an immigrant and worker advocacy group, to campaign for a local law that would require employers to provide water and rest and shade breaks for Miami-Dade County's more than 60,000 agriculture and construction workers on excessively hot days.

Delgado took a bus from Homestead, Fla., to Miami three times last year to attend public hearings on the proposal. In Miami-Dade County, the heat index — a measure that considers humidity as well as temperature — exceeded 100 degrees for 46 consecutive days in 2023, during the state's hottest summer ever.

The proposed protections, which would have been some of the strictest in the country, drew national attention.

But they never took effect.

Leaders in the agriculture and construction industries said such rules would create "an unneeded burden to thousands of businesses, a bottomless pit of red tape, lost time and money."

A majority of the commissioners signaled that they could not support the rules even after they were watered down.

The death knell came in April, when Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed legislation banning cities and counties from imposing such protections.

He argued that it would be unfair to allow different rules in South Florida than in, say, the Florida Panhandle.

Delgado still cannot believe it.

"I don't understand why they refuse to pass that law," Delgado said in Spanish in a recent interview in a sweet potato field in Florida City, just north of the Keys, as the heat index hovered around 106 degrees.

At least three male farmworkers — a 28-year-old placing wooden stakes in the ground to support bell peppers, a 26-yearold planting sugar cane and a 41-year-old harvesting oranges — died from heat-related illness in Florida last year, according to the most recent data available from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Lack of precise data makes heat deaths difficult to track, but many outdoor workers have experienced the effects of a warming climate on the human body.

Delgado's last hope is that the Biden administration will implement proposed regulations that would, for the first time, require employers to provide rest areas and water when the heat index reaches 80 degrees. The regulations could apply to about 35 million Americans.
But passing rules takes time, and Delgado is old.

He began working the land as a 5-year-old in Mexico. His father plowed the fields with oxen, he said.

He came to the United States in 1988 but did not have legal status until December, according to his lawyer, when he received a temporary work permit under a federal program for noncitizens who have been victims of labor law violations. Delgado worked for a company that had underpaid him and others after misclassifying them as contract workers.

On the day that Delgado collapsed from his first heatstroke in 2018, he had been suffering from nausea, vision loss and a headache. His second episode, in 2020, began when he felt queasy in the field.

But Delgado has no choice but to keep working. He makes his way to the fields in his trusty Chevy pickup, his only major possession, with its peeling green paint and dented fender.

He covers himself with long pants, long sleeves, a bandanna and a wide-rimmed hat. Since employers are not required to provide cold water nearby, he packs his own. When he needs shade, he opens a rusty beach umbrella, props it onto the truck bed and lies on the ground.

On the day of the interview, he bent over and cut sweet potato vines using a sugar cane machete that he sheared down to a smaller size. He would get paid $1.50 per bunch — and an additional 75 cents for each of those that he plants in the following days.

Taking a break, he fished an ice cube from his cooler to suck on.

He rents a room in Homestead and tends to the yard.

Over the years, he has suffered work-related injuries: He cut off part of a finger, underwent surgery after plant sap went into his eye and needed another surgery after an iron rod pierced his arm when he fell doing construction work.

Tens of thousands of farmworkers in the country without legal permission are ineligible for retirement relief, even after decades spent working in the United States. Delgado has told one of his daughters that soon he will not be able to work anymore and will need someone to support him. But his future remains unresolved.

At night, when his body cools down, everything starts to hurt. He takes 400 milligrams of ibuprofen and waits for some relief.