Roseville & Rosedale - General Topics

[mulad]

There has been a small amount of remodeling going on at HarMar Mall recently. As far as I can tell, just some refurbishment of the entranceways next to the Famous Footwear and the former Buffalo Wild Wings. BW3 has apparently moved over by Rosedale, though I don't know exactly where. Kyoto Sushi is moving into their former space.

[nordeast homer]

I'm always surprised that HarMar can keep it's doors open. It's a pain to get in and out of and it doesn't really have a hip or trendy store. There is a Cub on the back side, but if you don't live in the neighborhood you wouldn't know it was there because it is completely hidden from Snelling. It reminds me a little of Brookdale before they tore it down.

[FISHMANPET]

And part of the advertising inside the mall is that it's nice that it isn't so crowded.

I don't know what HarMar was like in its initial incarnation, but it can't afford to be both a strip mall and an interior mall. Most stores have turned their back on either the inside or the outside. I think Barnes & Noble and Marshall's are the only stores that have entrances both outside and inside, and that's expensive, because you need twice the registers, twice the security, etc etc.

Yet somehow that place keeps on trucking.

[mulad]

This image (Warning: BIG!) shows the area in 1957. HarMar apparently started out as a strip mall facing County B and grew from there. The portion housing Smashburger, Baja Sol, Leeann Chin, and Eddington's appears to be the oldest part, possibly extending a bit farther east from there too. It's a weird Frankenstein structure with pieces slapped together over time.

HarMar is probably doing better than it seems by walking through the interior halls. Most of the businesses that are surviving appear to have exterior entrances of their own or are very close to one of the other big stores, so many customers park in the lot near where they want to go and don't use the middle. I still do it all the time, since I like to get a bite to eat from one of the fast-food places and then pick up groceries at Cub -- I just refuse to drive from one end of the building to the other, even though it does take about 7 minutes to walk end-to-end.

I've always thought of HarMar as a "small" mall, but it has a pretty huge footprint which isn't all that far removed from the Dales.

[FISHMANPET]

Bad link, it's a link to report an Email sent to your UMN account as SPAM.

[mulad]

Hmm. I can't edit that post.

Try this: http://geo.lib.umn.edu/hennepin_county/ ... -1t-70.jpg

[mulad]

The old 2-story TCF Bank nearest the corner of Snelling & County B appears to be getting remodeled. The sidewalk in front has been ripped up and all of the window treatments have been taken off.


Image link

[mulad]

I still haven't figured out whether this is turning into a new facade or effectively just fancy columns, but something more substantial is going in place of where the simple columns had been on the former TCF Bank building. This is a shot from a couple of weeks ago.



A new FreeStyle Yogurt is going into the narrow space between the old TCF building and Smashburger. Inside, the business that did photo retouching and t-shirt printing, etc., moved out a couple of months ago.

[mulad]

Finally turned my head in that direction today. It's now Hermes Floral.



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[mulad]

The frozen yogurt shop was open when I went by last night. I caught a new sign going in for Best Buy Mobile a few days ago, which occupies about half of the first floor of the old TCF Bank structure -- it looked like they hadn't opened yet when I went by yesterday. The half closest to Subway is still unoccupied. The pillars have been wrapped with brick, making them look a lot more substantial than what they used to be.


Image link

[FISHMANPET]

I was there last week, and there was a rendering in a window of a Best Buy Mobile next to a Tenant #something, so I don't think they have a tenant lined up yet.

[twincitizen]

Good news for this prominent intersection:

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... ville.html

Planet Fitness has begun construction on a new location in Roseville, where it will fill one of the city's last significant retail vacancies. The gym is leasing roughly 32,000-square-foot space at 1750 County Road 36 that previously was occupied by Circuit City. The shopping center, located near Rosedale Center, is owned and anchored by Sports Authority. (ED: Is that right? Sports Authority owns the shopping center? Seems unusual, although maybe they picked it up on the cheap after CC tanked)

Page 2 has a not 100% accurate summary of past Roseville retail changes (parentheses mine):

"Previous deals include:
Bed Bath & Beyond and Kirklands replaced Linens 'n Things (Rosedale Corner(?) mall at NE corner of Fairview & B2)
Gordmans replaced a United Artists Theater (Crossroads Mall)
Best Buy and Dick’s Sporting Goods went into a former Rainbow Foods (actually Best Buy moved next door into Rainbow, and Dicks moved into former Best Buy several years later)
Staples and K&G Stores took over an AMC Theater (HarMar)
Jo-Ann Fabrics occupied a former Wickes Furniture store (Crossroads, near Kohl's and Dick's...but it vacated a space at Rosedale Corner)
Cost Plus World Market reopened a store it had closed (Fairdale Shoppes)
The remaining vacancies include former Northwestern Books, J.C. Penney (no...that's wrong) and T.J. Maxx stores."

(BWW moved from HarMar into TGIF near Fairview and B2)
(Ultimate Electronics is still vacant)

Why do I know so much or care about Rosedale area retail space? I used to manage the Jimmy John's over there and delivered for a bit too. I'm kinda fascinated/glad that it has remained such a strong retail market. How that area can support a major regional mall (Rosedale) as well as several fairly outdated medium-box/strip malls is beyond me. I count Crossroads, HarMar, Rosedale Corner, Fairdale Shoppes, Rosedale Square (the Byerly's shopping center at Snelling&Co Rd C), the subject of this story, plus several out-buildings...

[MNdible]

Rosedale has a great location with no real competition on that side of town.

[mplsjaromir]

Rosedale is the second highest grossing mall after MOA.

[Wedgeguy]

Rosedale is the second highest grossing mall after MOA.

Other than Maplewood, Rosedale has the north and east side of town pretty much to it's self. There is no feeding off each other like in the south and west burbs!

[Tom H.]

The fact that Rosedale is so financially successful makes it all the more puzzling to me that they couldn't fill that huge Borders space with something better than a furniture store. The lack of a bookstore really makes it a much less attractive mall to visit, in my opinion.

[woofner]

Isn't Rosedale surviving by killing off the adjacent smaller centers, i.e. Crossroads? Whereas the opposite is happening at other shopping malls. Not sure if this is due to Rosedale being more dynamic than the typical regional shopping center or Rosedale's hangers-on being less dynamic than the typical hangers-on.

[twincitizen]

I think my initial comment was misinterpreted. I wasn't questioning the continued success of Rosedale Center itself, but the relative success of the "hangers-on" to remain leased up, especially Har-Mar. Rosedale itself has a fantastic location on two busy highways, closer to both downtowns than any other DALE. It also took advantage of Mervyn's closing to tear down an anchor and add AMC (aka steal it from HarMar) and the "lifestyle center". 3 of the "hangers-on" are those weird indoor-outdoor hyrbids where the indoor section is close to 100% dead but the outside is thriving...which doesn't seem to be much of a problem.

I almost wish one of the "hangers-on" would struggle so the configuration could be revamped/modernized (again, Har-Mar) but that hasn't happened.

The death of Brookdale and struggles of Northtown (and Maplewood from what I hear) can't be ignored in this conversation. Good point, wedgeguy, about Rosedale having a huge slice of the market to itself.

[nordeast homer]

Some of the retail areas around Rosedale are killing themselves. Crossroads is one of the most poorly constructed retail spaces I've seen - parking is terrible and the lot is downright dangerous to drive in, although somehow it is almost full...Some of the strip centers need to go though; you could put some nice office projects around there to stabilize things a little more. A lot of these spaces are getting up there in age and either need to be remodeled or disappear.
It's great to see Planet Fitness taking up the space next to Sports Authority, it should be a really nice fit for both of them.

[min-chi-cbus]

I've never heard the term "hangers-on" before....is that a real term or some poorly-slung inside jargon?