Stay in the Loop

Neighborhood gets its first full-service veterinary practice

Dr. Michelle Donald opened the North Loop’s only veterinary clinic with a “quaint, old-fashioned” mission of connecting with families and their four-legged friends.

Donald, the owner of Modern Love Veterinary, plans to take care of the cats and dogs of a growing number of downtown dwellers, which have had to look elsewhere to find a clinic.

“It just felt like this neighborhood was well ready for a clinic,” she said. “It’s quite the dog parade at 5 o’clock when people get home from work and walk their dogs right here. We love it.”

Modern Love began taking patients in early September in the Free Spirit Building on Washington Avenue. The clinic occupies nearly 2,700 square feet just down from Crisp & Green and Commers Custom Jewelers in the building, which had been known for longtime tenant Sapor Café until it closed in 2015.

Modern Love is a full-service clinic offering dentistry, surgery and veterinary acupuncture. Donald, so far the clinic’s sole veterinarian, will occasionally make house calls and is certified as a “Fear Free” professional. The clinic is finishing a second, 700-square-foot addition for a classroom for dogs — for things like socialization classes for puppies — a sound-proof cat room and a break room.

“I just want to bring down the stress level,” she said.

Donald, a longtime resident of the North Loop and Northeast Minneapolis, said she had to commute to the suburbs for years. During that time, she said, Donald “watched this neighborhood blossom… with residential life.” Now she lives two blocks away from work.

Like her neighbors Loop Dental, a dental office that recently opened next door in the 5th Avenue Lofts building, Donald said the neighborhood needs more services to meet the demands of its growing population. Health care services offered in the North Loop have been on the rise in the past year, with Hennepin County Medical Center opening a clinic and pharmacy in the TractorWorks Building.

Donald said the name Modern Love comes from the clinic’s combination of modern medicine and old-fashioned service.

“It really encompasses what I want this clinic to feel like,” she said. “We just want to treat people and their pets well and be that neighborhood clinic.”

The clinic, at 213 N. 5th Ave., is open 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m.–7 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, and 9 a.m.–1 p.m. Saturday. It is closed on Sunday.

Modern Love Veterinary is the sponsor of the 1st Annual Minneapolis Dog Costume Parade Walk, an event that will have costumed pooches strutting around the clinic on Oct. 21 at 2 p.m.