Pranksters 'rickrolled' Pill Hill neighborhood with banner for 'Hilltop Apartments'

Jeff Kiger, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
Updated ·1 min read

Apr. 1—ROCHESTER — Pill Hill residents were scrambling to check zoning regulations for St. Mary's Park when a banner announcing a "Hilltop Apartments" tower went up on Monday morning.

Instead of checking city regulations, they should have been looking at their calendars to remember that it was April 1, the day for pranks and jokes.

The large vinyl banner posted at Ninth Avenue Southwest and Fourth Street announced that an apartment complex with "convenient high-rise living" would be built in the fall of 2025. It even featured a stolen and misspelled Weis Builders logo.

The unknown prankster or pranksters used a QR code on the banner to deliver the punchline on their urban development joke. The code is linked to a video of Rick Astley singing his 1987 song, "Never Going to Give You Up."

In other words, the stately Pill Hill neighborhood was "rickrolled."

One group that isn't laughing is Weis Builders.

"We had nothing to do with it," said Weis Group Vice President Scott Fenske. "We're pretty disappointed someone would use our logo in a joke like this."