Suburban Malls and Associated Retail News

[mamundsen]

This area can be a nightmare for navigating. With the frontage road on the west side of Snelling causing issues frequently. There is also an abundance of retail opportunities in the area, so changing Har Mar to a residential focus would be welcomed. This would be an ideal location with the A Line. Look at the density increase Roseville has seen up on County C. Hopefully we see more of this in the area soon!

[BikesOnFilm]

Are Roseville residents, Roseville government, and random internet commentors suggesting they know better than Fidelis what the market will support and how much parking is needed, and that it would actually be viable to pack the site with mixed use 5 over 2s or something?

Putting aside the willingness to defer public process to “the market,” Fidelis largely doesn’t develop anything other than strip malls. Their market analysis, if they do one at all, likely stops and ends with whether a strip mall is viable at a site, and how much strip mall to build. There is no analysis done for anything beyond that, and their determination that a strip mall should be built shouldn’t be taken as a justification to declare that a strip mall is the -only- viable use for the property.

We just saw this play out this week with Legacy, an industrial developer, trying to claim that housing wasn’t viable on the Strib Printing Plant site, and then when directly questioned about this, admitted they don’t develop residential so their market analysis didn’t consider it at all in their calculus.

It’s a hammer company trying to tell us the only thing we can do is hammer a bunch of nails.

[Mdcastle]

So then is it reasonable to think that if Har Mar is really so lucrative for apartment buildings, maybe an apartment developer would make a "make me move" offer to Fidelis.

[BikesOnFilm]

I think the problem with this argument is it's intentionally setting up the bare minimum effort Fidelis has put forward against a made up standard of packing the entire property with apartment buildings, as if the lack of a developer rushing in to propose a Roseville version of West End is proof that the best and highest use anyone could reasonably expect here is a dumpy strip mall.

A developer that isn't terminally car brained might have put an apartment building or two into their strip mall plan, which is what the city has envisioned for the site. Fidelis did not, and is trying to rush through the public engagement part of the process because they know this isn't what the city or the neighborhood expects.

If you buy a property, you should probably be aware of what the city wants that property to become! You should probably understand the comprehensive plan and the zoning, and if your company's developments don't match that, your choices are to listen and expand beyond your niche, to go through the public process and make a case for why your competing vision is better, or sell the property and find an exurb that fits your niche better.

If you find yourself being coy about your plans and ducking the public process because you know that people won't like what you intend to do, you are probably in the wrong. At the bare minimum, you've proven you're a bad neighbor.

[angrysuburbanite]

Both Eddie Bauer and Francesca's have exited Eden Prairie Center as of this past month. By my count this past weekend there are now 16 vacancies in the mall. Wings Financial moved into a spot near Target that has hosted the seasonal Northwoods Boutique previous years. Northwoods now has a permanent space near where the Great Mandarin used to be, but still has seasonal hours. The former My Pillow store that has had like 3 different things over the past few years secured a new tenant (I don't remember what it was called). Hopefully it lasts, unlike whatever was there before.

The mall sits in a weird holding state where it still has enough strong tenants to draw lots of foot traffic during peak shopping times, yet also has very noticeable (and worsening) issues with vacancy, especially on the first floor where there are rows of 5+ vacant spaces clustered together in multiple corridors. The JC Penney wing is starting to give off dead mall vibes and would be completely screwed on the lower level if DSW moved out.

Unlike Ridgedale and Southdale, most of the new tenants seem to have been non-chains signed to short leases and have pretty high turnover; I visit this mall infrequently but several stores are different than they were less than a year ago when I was last there. I was curious and compared its current directory to a directory via the web archive from 10 years ago (2016). This might not be 100% accurate but this was a breakdown of what I found in terms of storefronts filled within the mall itself:
Category / 2016 / 2026
Overall storefront occupancy / 97.80% / 82.42%
Anchor storefront occupancy / 100.00% / 80.00%
Floor 1 storefront occupancy / 97.30% / 70.27%
Floor 2 storefront occupancy / 97.73% / 90.91%
Restaurant/entertainment Wing storefront occupancy / 100.00% / 100.00%

I didn't realize how little Eden Prairie Center has been trying to keep up with the retail trends both Ridgedale and Southdale are following; I'm not too surprised they aren't chasing the luxury retail Southdale's been working on, but it's a little surprising that it hasn't followed a similar trajectory to Ridgedale. EP has a very similar market to Ridgedale but the latter has a much higher occupancy rate and boasts a lot more medium/high-end retail and entertainment options. Nearly all of the national retailers EP has lost (besides the ones declaring bankruptcy) still maintain a presence at Ridgedale. I know nothing about real estate but I thought this was at least somewhat interesting and worth sharing.

[Tom H.]

My kids and I go to the EP mall for 3 reasons: movie theater, Barnes and Noble, and High Score (card store / retro video games). All on the food court side of the mall. I haven't been to the other side in a long time (not counting Target)

[Nick]

I'm looking forward to visiting for the first time as soon as that train gets going

[Korh]

You know I wonder how much the malls around the city charge to lease there smaller retail/not anchored spaces and what if any benefits are there to say finding a similar sized strip mall location, or a repurposed stand alone building.

[angrysuburbanite]

I'm looking forward to visiting for the first time as soon as that train gets going

I described it in probably the least flattering way possible in that post but it is a nice mall, worth spending some time in. It feels more occupied than the numbers look. Absolute pain to walk or bike to from the light rail station though.

[Bakken2016]

I'm looking forward to visiting for the first time as soon as that train gets going

I described it in probably the least flattering way possible in that post but it is a nice mall, worth spending some time in. It feels more occupied than the numbers look. Absolute pain to walk or bike to from the light rail station though.

SW Prime would be an option for the light rail station as well.

[Hamstirly]

Deep bore station under the mall when???

It's a long stroady walk/bike but there are multi use paths all over that area. It could be much worse (Edina, Plymouth).

[Bakken2016]

Yeah, it's only like a 10-12 min walk to the mall from the LRT station and there are sidewalks for the entirety of that walk.

[angrysuburbanite]

EP does better with multi use paths than most suburbs, for sure. The rapid succession of Flying Cloud Drive, the mall ring road (cars do not slow down to wait for you), and the janky staircase up to the Target entrance definitely needs some work, though.

Eden Prairie Center is too important to the city of Eden Prairie to ever completely die but its current state is really troubling. I used to go there as a little kid around 10-12 years ago and I remember it being basically completely leased and super busy all of the time. Interestingly, on the weekends I don't feel like it has much less foot traffic now compared to then, but it really is close to the "concerning" threshold in terms of tenant occupancy. I think most of the remaining traditional retailers are doing ok, but there are so many inline stores that are in there right now that are probably all going to drop like flies once this leasing term is up.

Unless it secures some longer term retailers in some of the larger spaces vacant right now without losing more, I could see its traditional retail market being increasingly ceded to the other south/west metro shopping centers.

[John21]

I used to walk there quite a bit from my apartment back in 2008-10. It was nicer than Southdale back then. Sounds like Jay and Silent Bob finally took it down.

[mattaudio]

...hence, no more game show.

[Mdcastle]

Seems there's actually a shortage of retail in this market, at least certain kinds of retail in certain location. Vacancy in the Southwest suburbs is down to around 3% even as it stays at 13% downtown.

https://www.startribune.com/not-enough- ... ource=gift

Demand for retail space is concentrated in inner-ring suburbs where the population density is highest and in outlying communities where land is less expensive and consumers are looking for new places to shop and eat. Downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul, which are already suffering from a glut of empty offices and fewer workers to fill them, are much more likely to have empty storefronts.... there’s a growing disconnect between sagging retail sales, which impacts how much owners can afford to pay, and construction costs, which determine rents. That’s part of the reason... urban locations where development costs are higher tend to be more expensive and have fewer takers.

There’s also more fast-casual restaurants and service-oriented businesses like oil change shops and nail salons, who want to be in freestanding buildings in close proximity to an anchor tenant, like a grocery store, which provides a built-in customer base. “It’s the car wash, tire, fast food, coffee shop and dentist’s office .... In response, developers and investors are focusing on building small strip centers and free-standing clusters of coffee shops, oil change shops and fast-casual restaurants rather than the kind of big malls that once dominated the retail scene.