Rochester, Minnesota, home of the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, is largely recognized as a center for health care innovation, but this midsize city offers much more than proximity to some of the nation’s most innovative health care experts. It also has a thriving art and music scene, is located less than two hours from several professional sports teams, and provides easy access to a variety of outdoor activities, from biking to hiking to snowboarding and more. If you’re looking for reasons to move to Rochester, there are quite a few.
Plentiful Job Opportunities
The area’s largest employer, the Mayo Clinic, employs over 60,000 people who serve over 90,000 patients each year. As a result, jobs in the health care field in Rochester are plentiful for those with the right training and education. The numerous Mayo Clinic facilities in the downtown area, along with the many hotels and restaurants located there, have created a strong, stable local economy.
While the health care industry employs the largest number of people in the area, the technology and education fields also provide jobs for thousands. After the Mayo Clinic, the Rochester Public School System and IBM are Rochester’s second and third largest employers respectively.
Proximity to Big-City Amenities
While you’ll find no shortage of ways to keep busy in Rochester, its proximity to Minneapolis gives its residents easy access to many big-city amenities while allowing them to enjoy the benefits of living in a smaller town.
Sports
With Rochester’s proximity to Minneapolis, sports fans will be happy. Baseball fans will enjoy watching the Minnesota Twins play at Target Field, while NFL fans can catch the Minnesota Vikings at the U.S. Bank Stadium. If you’d like to watch a basketball game, the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx both play at the Target Center, a multi-use arena in downtown Minneapolis. The Minnesota Wild NHL hockey team plays at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
Travel
Rochester also offers easy access to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Located just under 90 minutes from Rochester, it serves about 35 million people each year, with several major airlines flying into and out of the airport daily.
Shopping
For shopping, there’s no need to leave Rochester, which is home to the Apache Mall, the largest shopping center in southeastern Minnesota, and a downtown 44-block district loaded with clothing boutiques, antique stores, art galleries, and more. For those who want to venture farther out, the Mall of America, the largest shopping and entertainment complex in the United States, is located a little over an hour away in nearby Bloomington.
Art and Music Scene
Rochester boasts a thriving art and music scene with an array of theaters, art galleries, museums, and live music venues that provide a host of experiences throughout the year.
The Rochester Symphony, a professional orchestra and volunteer chorale, presents a concert season every fall, winter, and spring and offers free community concerts and educational programs year-round. The Rochester Art Center, situated downtown on the banks of the Zumbro River, features an extensive collection of multimedia and multicultural artwork and regularly hosts a variety of community programs, such as summer camps for kids and meet-the-artist events for adults.
Numerous Outdoor Activities
Rochester and surrounding areas boast an abundance of outdoor activities that residents can enjoy year-round, even in the cold winter months.
Bike Trails
The city has over 85 miles of interconnected bike trails. Many of them connect to some of the area’s numerous natural spaces, such as Silver Lake, a small reservoir with picnic tables, hiking trails, and a playground, and Soldiers Field Veterans Memorial, a large, open grassy space housing monuments dedicated to American veterans. The scenic downtown waterfront bike route takes you by the Rochester Art Center and continues past several shops and restaurants.
Skiing
In the winter, spend your weekends skiing and snowboarding at Welch Village, a ski resort located about an hour from Rochester. With over 60 runs and 140 acres of skiable ground, the resort provides some of the best skiing in Minnesota.
Hiking
Numerous hiking trails are located in and around the city. Whether you’re an experienced hiker or just want to find an easy jaunt for the entire family, there’s a trail for you. Oxbow Park, about 20 minutes from Rochester, has over 620 acres of hiking trails. Whitewater State Park, 25 miles east of the city, contains over 2,700 acres of land. You can hike from the bottomland surrounding the Whitewater River all the way to the bluffs overlooking it. For a unique experience, hike to the Elba Fire Tower about 30 minutes from Rochester. Hikers can make their way through the woods to the 110-foot-tall fire tower. Hikers are allowed to climb the tower but should pay close attention to wind and weather conditions.
Quarry Hill Nature Center
Quarry Hill Nature Center is a 329-acre park that features 8 miles of hiking trails, a human-made cave, a children’s garden, and an indoor nature center called Exploration Hall, where visitors can see fish, birds, and a large taxidermy collection. The center offers summer camps and year-round classes for the community.
Easy Access to Higher Education Institutions
If you plan to further your education, Rochester offers many options that should enable you to do so. Several colleges are located in the area, including the University of Minnesota Rochester, (UMR), the Mayo Clinic Medical School, and Rochester Community and Technical College.
Thanks to its strong ties to the health care industry, the city is home to innovative education programs such as the NXT GEN MED, a health science accelerated degree program at UMR delivered in partnership with the Mayo Clinic and Google. This hybrid program leverages cutting-edge technology, matches students with mentors from the Mayo Clinic, and enables students to earn a bachelor’s degree in two years.
We’ve listed five great reasons to consider a move to Rochester. If you can think of any others that we’ve overlooked, please let us know. Just give us a call or send us an email here at Tom Kadlec Kia, and we’ll add it to our list. We look forward to hearing from you!
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