Located in Brooklyn Center, an inner-ring suburb 10 miles northwest of Minneapolis, Brookdale Center is a behemoth of a mall living on borrowed time.  Opened in 1962, Brookdale debuted to a new, sprawling post-war building boom which eventually levelled off as the area became built out.  Over time, many original residents serving the mall’s purpose moved up and out to newer and better suburbs, and were slowly replaced by those with a different socioeconomic status.  Today, Brookdale is in serious decline, existing as as an ever-dwindling collection of stores inside the husk of a super-regional mall on the precipice of closure. 

In the early part of the 20th century, Brooklyn Center was a far different place.  It incorporated in 1911 to stave off annexation from neighboring Minneapolis, in order to remain remain the rural, farming community it had been since pioneer days.

Fast forward a few decades.  After World War Two, masses of returning GIs and their growing families needed housing, so large neighborhoods of single-family housing were built quickly and cheaply.  Brooklyn Center and other formerly rural communities close to Minneapolis were no longer able to resist development, and became built out over a relatively short span.   

With the suburban housing boom and post-war automobile culture came shopping centers.  Long before the Twin Cities had the Mall of America, which opened in 1992, they had the ‘Dales’ - a foursome of enclosed, super-regional malls that were developed by Minneapolis-based Dayton’s department store and built between 1956 and 1974.  First came Southdale in 1956, which debuted as one of the first regional malls in the country, and was located in well-to-do southwest suburban Edina.  Next came Brookdale, in northwest suburban Brooklyn Center, which opened in 1962; later came Rosedale in Roseville, between Minneapolis and St. Paul, in 1969; and finally, Ridgedale opened in west-suburban Minnetonka in 1974. 

In addition to the ‘Dales’, the Twin Cities also had other regional shopping centers like Apache Plaza, which opened in 1961 in the northeast suburbs of Minneapolis, and Knollwood Mall, which opened in 1955 in west-suburban St. Louis Park.  All of these malls were moderately to extremely successful throughout the years, and all of them exist today in some form or another – redevelopment or otherwise.  Only one – Brookdale – is in dire straits today, following an extended period of decline which began slowly during the 1990s.  Ridgedale and Rosedale are still immensely popular, and despite some recent trouble still remains viable. 

Brookdale Center was originally conceived by Dayton’s department store to provide a northern complement to its successful Southdale Center.  Famous mall visionary Victor Gruen, who also created Southdale, was hired to design the mall.  Elements of his influence are still present today in the wide spaces and tall ceilings in the main corridor.  Also, unlike the other ‘dales’, which are all two levels, Brookdale was designed to be one level because it is situated on a former swamp; as such, it has always been the smallest of the four malls.  

When Brookdale opened in 1962, it was anchored by a two level, 180,000 square foot Sears and a tw0 level, 50,000 square foot JCPenney (dry goods only at first).  The mall was expanded in 1966-1967 to include Dayton’s and Donaldson’s stores, and JCPenney expanded to a full-service format.  The mall was extremely successful and drew patrons from the entire northern half of the Twin Cities metro, until competition and demographics began to change the game.

In 1972, some competition arrived for Brookdale Center in its north metro trade area.  Northtown Mall opened in Blaine, approximately 10 minutes north of Brookdale.  However, this wasn’t a huge blow for Brookdale, as Northtown is across the river and serves a mostly different set of suburbs (Coon Rapids, Blaine, Anoka, Fridley).  In fact, Brookdale even remained viable into the 1990s, as numerous other malls and even the humungous Mall of America opened across town in 1992.  The late 90s weren’t as kind to Brookdale, though, as it battled a 30 percent vacancy rate and a foreclosure in 1996. 

Not long after Brookdale began its first spiral of decline, the mall was renovated, expanded, and temporarily saved, beginning in 2001 with a driven commitment by Talisman Corporation, its new owner.  The 2001-2002 renovation replaced and modernized the flooring and general decor of the indoor corridors, which had not seen a significant  renovation in decades.  In addition, several popular national brands were wooed to the mall, including Old Navy, Gap, American Eagle, and Hot Topic, and the mall was given a weird new logo.  At one point in late 2003, Brookdale rebounded to a 95 percent occupancy rate and had all four anchor stores filled.  At the same time, Brookdale expanded, tearing down the northwest wing of the mall and replacing it with a new, slighty larger wing containing a new food court and a Barnes and Noble store.

Several anchor changes have taken place at Brookdale through the decades.  There were barely any major changes from the 1960s until 1987, when north anchor Donaldson’s was sold to Carson Pirie Scott of Chicago and operated as a Carson’s until 1995.  The Carson’s purchase in Minnesota ultimately turned out to be an unprofitable mistake, so all Carson’s stores except Rochester were sold to the parent of Dayton’s, Dayton-Hudson, who then converted all the stores to its Mervyns division that same year.  Mervyns was a better fit for the space, and lasted until Dayton-Hudson -who in 2000 renamed themselves Target Corporation - sold all of its non-Target stores in 2004.  A group of investors bought Mervyns from Target and immediately began closing all of the Minnesota stores, including the one at Brookdale.  It has been vacant ever since, despite an attempt, in 2007, by Wal-Mart to secure a store there, which was blocked by Sears in a lawsuit.  Sears said they believe their tenant agreement gives them the right to approve the stores there.  The lawsuit soured Wal-Mart, who later said they are no longer interested in pursuing the location. 

The east anchor, which opened as Dayton’s in the 1960s, became Marshall Field’s in 2001 when Dayton-Hudson decided to consolidate its brands in Minneapolis (Dayton’s), Chicago (Marshall Field’s), and Detroit (Hudson’s) under one nameplate.  They chose Marshall Field’s because the venerable Chicago store was not only representative of the largest city and number of extant stores among the three brands, but also because of the venerability of the brand.  It all ended up being sort of a moot point a few years later, when Marshall Field’s parent Target Corporation decided to focus on the Target stores and get rid of everything else, selling Marshall Field’s to May Company.  Then, after owning Marshall Field’s less than a year, May became acquired by Federated Department Stores (Macy’s), who rather quickly decided to consolidate all of the May nameplates, including Marshall Field’s, into one unified Macy’s banner in 2006. 

After the May acquisition, Macy’s suddenly had hundreds more stores covering 90 percent of the country, and they also inherited some unprofitable stores as well.  Macy’s has gone through several rounds of closures to help eliminate these, and in 2008 they decided to eliminate the store at Brookdale.  It closed in March 2009  and remains empty as of early 2010.

Brookdale’s south anchor, which had been JCPenney since the mall opened, operated for over four decades before closing in February 2004 and relocating to a brand new standalone store in Coon Rapids.  However, the anchor wasn’t dead long, replaced in September 2005 by Steve and Barrys, a flash-in-the-pan cheapo clothing anchor that expanded quickly nationwide in the mid- to late- 2000s, often taking dead mall anchors and having no qualms operating in dead or dying malls.  Not surprisingly, Steve and Barrys quickly became insolvent, and closed for good at the end of 2008.  The Brookdale store was shed a few months before the entire chain closed, though, as they attempted to focus on their more profitable stores.  The anchor remains empty as of early 2010.

The western anchor, Sears, has remained the entire time since the mall opened, and currently has no plans to close.  A Kohls Department Store also still operates on the mall’s periphery and is included in the Brookdale complex, but is not part of the mall structure. 

In addition to losing three of its four anchor stores over a span of five years, Brookdale has also had to deal with increasing competition in what was left of its trade area – the northwest Twin Cities suburbs – when a large retail district and lifestyle center opened in nearby Maple Grove in 2003.  Lacking a downtown of its own, northwest suburban Maple Grove began growing at a breakneck pace in recent decades, attracting a more affluent base than inner-ring suburbs such as Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park.  In order to take advantage of this affluent suburban growth, Maple Grove constructed a new downtown in phases, and the entire development is referred to as Arbor Lakes.  Included in the development is over 6 million square feet of retail space, clustered around a large lifestyle center and a neotraditional Main Street.  Nearly every retail chain and box store in the country is represented in Maple Grove, including those traditionally located in enclosed regional malls.  Located just ten miles from Brookdale, this development more than any other has dwindled Brookdale’s waning viability, essentially nudging it out of having any trade area at all. 

Faced with increasing competition, many of the updates Talisman materialized in the early part of the 2000s disintegrated by 2005.  After losing two anchors in – JCPenney and Mervyns – in 2004, Old Navy, American Eagle, Gap, Pac Sun, and many of the other stores brought in by the renovation closed in short order.  Most of the other stores operating at Brookdale are local stores, and the number of national, popular chains has dwindled.  In 2009, shortly after Macy’s jumped ship, Barnes and Noble left as well, creating even more empty space. 

In late 2009 and early 2010, the owners of Brookdale Center, Florida-based Brooks Mall Properties, defaulted on their mortgage.  Then, in February 2010, Brookdale was purchased by its mortgage lender in a voluntary foreclosure sale, for $12.5 million.  It’s currently anyone’s guess as to what the new owner plans to do with the site, although rumors from office to residential to a new Vikings stadium have emerged.  I say make the whole thing one huge kitty condo.  One thing is for certain – the mall has almost no viability in its current state, especially at its current size.  So to all you dead mall or Victor Gruen fans – you better get to this one soon before it’s too late and the doors are closed for good.

Brookdale’s website still exists, but is over a year out of date – indicating both Steve and Barrys and Macy’s as being open, as well as numerous in-line stores which have also closed.  The mall advertises having 70 retailers, but only about 30 remain open as of early 2010.  Brookdale also put up a new pylon a couple years ago along Highway 100, featuring the dumb logo which is moderately illegible against the big bird-yellow background, and features a smattering of stores that have since departed.  You know your mall is in trouble when a local cell phone store shows up on the pylon.  Just sayin’. 

I’ve visted Brookdale many times, beginning as a little kid in the 90s, and have witnessed the roller coaster death spiral first hand.  Even then, I remember Brookdale being a ’lesser’ alternative to the malls in the southern and western suburbs.  But I also thought that it was so incredibly cool how dated and cavernous the mall was, with amazingly wide and tall corridors.  And who could forget the parking lot locator animals?  I know I parked in the elephant lot at least a couple times.

Also, don’t forget to check out this more in-depth (and hilarious) commentary from dumpystripmalls.com, a blog that highlights - and lampoons – Minnesota retail.  There are also a few vintage shots from Brookdale here – believe it or not, the interior looked essentially the same until the early 2000s.  As an aside, I hope she updates her blog soon!

Feel free to leave your own comments/experiences with Brookdale.  And, if anyone happens to have any pre-renovation pictures I’d love to see them.  I have a lot more pictures than I initially posted here (these are from April 2009), and I’ll get them up eventually, but they’re all post-2001.

Here it is. The big kahuna. The head honcho. This is it, for the United States anyway. The 15-year-old Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota is one of the largest single-site retail themed complexes in the whole entire country. A few sites in America offer more retail, such as the King of Prussia Mall in metro Philadelphia, and even the Eastwood Mall in metro Youngstown, Ohio, but due to the Mall of America’s large theme park in the center of the complex, it is the largest overall. However, we’re all pretty much aware of this. The Mall of America is huge, and pretty much everybody and their grandmother knows that. What I’d like to interrogate and focus on is twofold: How does the mall and how has the mall operated within its own framework since the beginning; and secondly, how does the mall operate locally in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area?

The Mall of America was born not of necessity, but rather from notions of excessive grandeur. The Twin Cities already had malls, many of them, in fact, and even arguably the very first climate-controlled enclosed regional mall, Southdale Center, opened in 1956 about 10 minutes away from the present Mall of America. It all really began when the Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota Twins decided to leave their home at the Metropolitan Stadium, where they and various other professional teams played from 1956 to 1981, to new digs at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis. The stadium was demolished in 1982, and everyone wondered what would become of the site. Unbeknownst to many, the Ghermezian Brothers, who developed the megamall West Edmonton Mall in Canada came a-calling, and by 1986 had signed an agreement with the City of Bloomington for rights to the site for a new megamall, an American version of what the Ghermezians brought to Canada. Various other groups got involved, including Teachers Insurance and Annuity and Melvin Simon & Associates, and each brought money and mall design expertise to the project. They broke ground in 1989, and in August 1992 the Mall of America opened with great fanfare.

The gross area inside the Mall of America is 4.2 million square feet; however, only 2.5 million square feet are available as retail space on four levels which are arranged in a roughly symmetrical rectangle connecting four anchors at its vertices. The four sides to the rectangle contain roughly 520 stores on three levels, and each side has its own distinct style in terms of decor. There are also two large food courts in the mall, one on each of the north and south side’s third levels. Due to the mall’s footprint being rather small, hemmed in on the space of the old stadium, parking was to be an issue. To solve this problem, they built two gigantic identical seven-level parking structures on the east and west sides of the mall, and the former Met Center was torn down in 1994 and is currently a gravel lot used for overflow parking. Each level in the parking structures is named after a state, to fit with the whole America theme. Also, despite being in one of the coldest parts of the country, the Mall of America is not heated. Instead, the giant structure is heated by patrons, employees, and the greenhouse effect during the day because the roof is made up of transparent windows, which also provide natural light to the Amusement Park during the day. In fact, air conditioning needs to be run at all times to maintain a comfortable climate within the mall, even during January.

As far as the retail spaces within the Mall of America, many inside the mall have changed while the anchors have not. The anchors when the mall opened in 1992 are the same as today: Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Sears, and Nordstrom. However, the offerings inside the mall have been transformed slightly over the past 15 years. Several junior anchors which graced the mall in its early days, such as Filene’s Basement, Linens ‘n Things, and Kids R Us, have gone away. The mall has also lost National American University, which offered college classes at the mall for many years. However, despite these retail changes, many components of the mall have remained, like the underwater aquarium, LEGO Imagination Center, many sit-down restaurants like Rainforest Cafe, an alternative High School, and even the Chapel of Love wedding chapel. The amusement park in the middle of the mall has also remained, even though it was rebranded The Park at MOA from Camp Snoopy following the breakdown of talks with Cedar Fair Amusement Company, thus ending the Peanuts characters branding.

Also of note are the mall’s third and fourth levels. The first two levels of the mall are typical of any super-regional mall, with many national retailers; however, the third and fourth levels at the Mall of America are a bit different. The food courts occupy most of the third level along the north and south corridor, but there are also many sit-down restaurants like California Cafe and Famous Dave’s on this level. Comprising the rest of the third level on the east and west sides there are many seemingly local stores that sell Minnesota knick-knacks, souvenirs, discounters and even one store which has been open since the mall opened that specializes in only farm toys. It seems the third level is undesirable for many competitive national retailers, save for some junior anchor holdouts like Nordstrom Rack, Marshalls, and Sports Authority on the third level which features a wall of faded pictures of people exercising from 1992. The fourth level, which only exists on the east and north sides of the mall, opened with an all-encompassing entertainment theme, and was comprised of several adult-themed night clubs and a 14-screen AMC Movie Theater. However, in 1999, one of the night clubs had problems with indecent exposure and other issues and closed. These problems were further complicated in 2004 when the City of Bloomington passed a citywide smoking ban in all establishments, and as a response all but one of the adult-themed clubs closed. As of today only Hooters and the movie theatre remain open on the fourth level.

Finally, I wanted to examine how the Mall of America functions locally in the Twin Cities area. When it opened in 1992, the Mall of America was controversial for many residents and local businesses, wondering how they would compete with this monster in the backyard. Surprisingly, though, the Mall of America did not kill every single other mall in the region. Drawing largely on tourists who come specifically for the mall from neighboring states, nationally, or even internationally, the local malls in the area still continue to be local. Many Twin Cities residents feel the Mall of America is too large for the typical shopping trip many people traditionally take to their local malls, spending an hour or two there, and continue to shop at places like Burnsville Center, Ridgedale Mall, Eden Prairie Center, Southdale Mall, and many others. Many who go to the Mall of America are out-of-towners, and this is implicit in the car license plates found in the mall’s behemoth parking structures. An inordinate amount are from the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and other regional states. People in the Twin Cities metro have mostly continued to patronize their local malls, and even renovate them extensively. Even the malls which were damaged by the opening of the Mall of America have bounced back, like Eden Prairie Center which was partially demolished and rebuilt with a completely new theme and as an enclosed mall in 2002. Other malls have also been extensively renovated in recent years, like Rosedale Center, and more recently Ridgedale and Burnsville Center. Even the farther flung malls are reinventing, like Northtown Mall in Blaine, and two brand-new large lifestyle centers have even been recently constructed in east-suburban Woodbury and northwest-suburban Maple Grove. In addition, the retail in downtown Minneapolis has also continued to be a destination for locals. So, retail locations are not in short supply or hurting by any means in the Twin Cities area due to the presence of the Mall.

Furthering the importance of tourism to the Mall of America, Metro Transit’s inaugural Hiawatha Line connected the mall via light rail to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and downtown Minneapolis in June 2004. Since the hub airport is literally across I-494 from the Mall, the short five-minute train ride has allowed connecting travelers to visit the mall even on relatively short layovers. Also, Bloomington is centrally located within the Twin Cities area, between the hub cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and several miles south.

So what’s next for the Mall of America? A lot, actually, is in the works, including a major expansion many years in the making which will allow the Mall to reclaim its top spot. Mall of America Phase II, which is scheduled to begin construction later in 2007, will more than double the size of the mall. Included in the expansion are more upscale retailers, and a diversity of offerings including a 6,000 seat music theatre, new hotel, water park and non-department store anchors like Bass Pro Shops which will hinge off the current mall’s north end on the former site of the Met Center. In fact, a piece of Phase II already opened in 2004 with Ikea, which will be connected to the new development via skywalk. The new development is not without controversies, as many wonder how the Ghermezians will finance the project. They are currently asking the state of Minnesota to finance a new parking structure for Phase II and for tax-free building materials for the project. But, it appears they have cleared the first minor hurdle, as the City of Bloomington has already approved preliminary plans for the project. It will be very interesting to see how Phase II is integrated and all of its offerings, and whether it will open on schedule in 2011.

Here are some pictures of the outside of the mall, including the behemoth anchors and the parking structures:

Inside of the mall’s retail perimeter:

Inside the Park @ MOA:

Opened in 1987, Northbridge Mall was the second enclosed mall for Albert Lea, luring shoppers away from then-20-year-old Skyline Mall across town.  Its anchors are ShopKo, a Green Bay, Wis. based discount retailer similar to Target and Wal-Mart, and Herberger’s, a Minnesota-based mid-tier department store now owned by the Bon-Ton Stores Inc.  Northbridge Mall has about 250,000 square feet of retail space and contains room for approximately 30 stores, services, and restaurants including a food court.  There’s also a 7-screen movie theatre.  Also, I suspect it was built as a complement to Southbridge Mall in Mason City, Ia., which is about 40 miles south of Albert Lea.  Could be a coincidence, but I don’t think so.

But why was Northbridge built anyway?  Skyline Mall was only about 20 years old at the time Northbridge was built in 1987.  Plenty of malls last longer than 20 years, but here are some reasons Skyline was outmoded then.  First, Skyline had already lost anchor Montgomery Ward, IGA, and several other stores during the mid-1980s.  Instead of renovating and repositioning Skyline to be the modern mall everyone in the 1980s wanted, the residents of Albert Lea elected to build an entirely new mall closer to the growth corridor along I-90 and I-35 completely across town from Skyline.  In doing so, Northbridge Mall and the nearby Interstates provided a magnet for other retail growth in the area.  In fact, most recently, Wal-Mart left its post at Skyline Mall, leaving it anchorless, as it built a brand-new Supercenter along I-35 not far from Northbridge Mall.  Although it is small at 250,000 square feet, Northbridge Mall was what Albert Lea wanted and needed when it opened, a bright, modern palace of retail located close to transportation and growth.  Skyline mall was the opposite of this, so it was left in the dust. 

The decor of Northbridge Mall, at least as of 2001, reeks of the 1980s.  Huge walls of circular bulbs, blue and pink neon on the ceiling, and geometric pastel designs original to Northbridge Mall paint a picture of days gone by, certainly not representative of the designs today.  If Northbridge Mall was in a larger or busier area it would have been renovated years ago.  Personally I find Northbridge’s style endearing and a call back to my youth and the times I spent shopping in malls with similar decors, only they’re all renovated now.  There’s nothing wrong with it, either.  The carpet looked like it could use a replacement and that’s about all. 

Ironically, Northbridge is about the same age now as Skyline was when it was outmoded.  The dated decor is far from modern by today’s standard, but the mall is also utilized to capacity.  But will Albert Lea residents elect to build another, brighter mall now?  Probably not. 

The pictures featured with this post were taken in September 2001.  As always feel free to comment.  

We like to root for the retail underdog. Don’t get us wrong, we love all things retail, but we appreciate older, outmoded, and visibly dated centers and hold them with special regards. Perhaps it’s our appreciation of retail history, a throwback to our youths, our dislike for retail homogenization, or even something entirely different altogether. Either way, as a result of this appreciation, our next two posts take us to a very typical midwestern town in southern Minnesota.

Strategically located at the intersection of two major interstates, 90 and 35, Albert Lea is home to about 18,000 people. This may seem small, Albert Lea’s retail arm extends into a larger trade area encompassing many smaller communities in south central Minnesota and north central Iowa, which is less than 10 miles south of Albert Lea. With that said, however, many people in Albert Lea and the surrounding areas also travel to areas with a wider variety of retail offerings such as the Twin Cities, about 90 miles away, or to closer shopping areas in Austin, Rochester, and Mason City, Iowa.

As a result of the relatively large distances to other cities, Albert Lea has above average retail offerings for a city its size, including two enclosed malls on opposing sides of town, Skyline Mall and Northbridge Mall. Yes, there are two enclosed malls for 18,000 people. Skyline Mall opened in 1966 on the west side of Albert Lea along Main St. near the intersection with Highways 13 and 69. During Skyline Mall’s heyday, it was anchored by JCPenney on the east side, Montgomery Ward on the west, and an IGA grocery store anchored the north end of the mall.

During the 1980s, however, Skyline Mall fell out of favor, possibly as a combined result of increasing competition from distant cities, its age, and changing trends in shopping in general. In 1983, the first blow came as Montgomery Ward closed. A couple years later, the IGA also closed, leaving two anchors vacant at Skyline Mall. As if that weren’t enough, in 1987 an entirely new mall, Northbridge Mall, was constructed across town. The new mall was modern, larger, and had more features shoppers were beginning to demand such as a food court. In addition, Northbridge is adjacent to an exit from Interstate 90, whereas Skyline Mall is not. Northbridge is also closer to where much of the growth is occurring in Albert Lea, on the east and north edges of town.

After Northbridge opened, Skyline continued on and attempted to reposition itself as an ancillary to Northbridge, featuring many local or discount retailers to complement Northbridge’s higher-end and national chain offerings. Indicative of this repositioning was the placement of one of the area’s first Wal-Marts in Skyline Mall, replacing Montgomery Ward as the west anchor. However, it was not enough to sustain the mall and many stores continued to leave. Ben Franklin, Stevenson’s clothing store, and several more stores closed in the early 1990s and finally JCPenney closed in 1993 or 1994, leaving Skyline with just one anchor.

The past decade or so has seen Skyline evolve from a retail center into a hybrid enclosed community/office/retail center. The hardware store and several other small shops are still open, but there are also a Senior Center and offices. Wal-Mart has recently left Skyline Mall to build a standalone Supercenter across town, on the east side near Interstate 35. As Skyline Mall continues to soldier on anchorless, it completes the transition from retail to community center and your guess is as good as ours what the future will bring.

We visited Skyline Mall in Albert Lea in September 2001 and took the photos featured herein. JCPenney had been replaced by Rainbow Foods, but that has since closed. Jo-Ann Fabrics and Hardware Hank are still open as of December 2006. Leave some comments and let us know what you think, and don’t forget to check out the vintage sign.

Regardless of what that cryptic scrawling meant, Winona, MN, actually does rock.  It’s a small Mississippi River city of about 27,000 approximately 30 miles north of La Crosse, or about 100 miles downriver from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.  Most of the city itself actually lies on an island in the middle of the river, and the city is surrounded on all sides by giant bluffs which majestically tower some 500-1000 feet over town.  The city’s downtown is full of shops and activity along the picturesque shores of the River.   

Needless to say, Winona does not come up short in natural beauty.  But, what else makes it rock?  The small enclosed Winona Mall does, of course.  Opened in 1966, the mall was part of a national trend or fad of relocating retail and central business districts from downtowns and into the periphery of American suburbia.  Winona Mall is located along the busy retail corridor of Highway 61 on the west side of town.  Winona Mall was originally anchored by Montgomery Ward, which I presume was in the space the grocery store currently occupies.  When Wards left is a mystery to me, but I’d speculate it was quite a while ago and definitely not within the past ten years.

Now, Winona Mall isn’t large (or even medium-sized); it’s possibly one of the smaller malls we’ve featured here.  Park Midwest realty, which manages Winona Mall’s leasing (pdf file), reports it is only 138,000 square feet.  It felt a bit larger to me, but possibly because it only has one anchor space and it’s a grocery store.  So, most of the 138,000 square feet is enclosed mall space.  That space is set up like a rudimentary C, with the grocery store hinging off the side.  It’s also important to note that although the mall only has the grocery store anchor attached, K-Mart is across the street.    

The decor and marketing of Winona Mall also makes it rock.  Throughout the small enclosed center, the ceiling is made up of very slanty, shiny, brass colored panels which makes it very unique, and very dated.  In addition, the mall also prints directories, which is unusual for a mall this size (and quite cool).  Also, the mall features one of the last original Two Plus Two stores, a chain much like Claire’s Accessories which operated in many of the malls of my childhood. 

In the past several years, Winona Mall has experienced a renaissance of sorts.  Faced with many vacancies and an unstable future, the mall’s leasing agent aggressively retenanted the mall and vacancy shot up from 50 to close to 80%.   

Take a look at the pictures below.  They were taken August 2006 by yours truly.  As always, share anything you’d like about Winona Mall.

Located in Roseville, Minnesota, almost smack dab in the middle of the Twin Cities metro area, Har Mar Mall opened in 1961.  It was designed by the same company which built Apache Plaza in nearby St. Anthony and opened the same year (Apache Plaza failed as a mall and was torn down in 2004).  However, unlike Apache Plaza, Har Mar Mall thrives, despite being less than a mile away from one of the Twin Cities’ most popular regional malls: Rosedale Center.  It accomplished success by finding a retail niche and being purposely downmarket from Rosedale, and other Twin Cities traditional malls. 

It wasn’t always this way.  In 1981, a tornado swept through the Twin Cities area and damaged much of the area around the mall.  Later, Har Mar Mall had fallen on rough times until about the mid-1990s, and decided to take on an experiment to see if it could still be viable in the 21st century.  It failed to compete with the glitzier, bigger Rosedale Center just up the street and reinvented itself by replacing the anchors with big-box stores and off price, nontraditional anchors and stores.  That’s not to say that Family Dollar and Shaniqua’s Wig Barn have set up shop; instead, very popular, upmarket as well as off-price anchors which usually set up in strip malls make up the eclectic mix of Har Mar Mall.  The anchors are: Barnes and Noble, TJMaxx, Cub Foods (A chain grocery store based in the Twin Cities), Marshalls, and Northwestern Bookstore.  Until the early 00s there was also a large Mars Music, but that closed with the entire chain. There’s also an 11-screen movie theater, a pet store, a phone store, a local book store, and much more.  Instead of a food court, Har Mar has both fast food and sit-down restaurants tucked back at one end of the mall.  Uniquely, all the fast food and sit-down establishments both have mall access as well as outdoor entrances. 

Other design features make Har Mar truly unique and intriguing.  The floorplan of the mall consists of a series of right angles, so the mall continuously zig-zags.  In all, there are 4 separate hallways from the food area to Cub Foods.  The longest and most interesting hallway is the corridor with Barnes and Noble.  It is massively wide, and features an arched ceiling with large windows allowing natural light to come in during the day.  There’s also a small basement court here with a community room.  Another weird part of the mall is the hallway between the food and Marshall’s.  About halfway down, it inexplicably becomes a ramp, making Marshall’s and the rest of the mall from that point several feet lower.  It’s much more dramatic in person, much like the continuous sloping of the Dartmouth Mall near New Bedford, Mass.  

I visited the mall and took these pictures in March, 2000.  I’ve visited more recently and it hasn’t changed.  It continues to be a popular center for mostly locals to watch a movie, buy groceries, get books, and go out to eat.  It’s essentially a strip mall cobbled together into an indoor mall, and for that reason alone it deserves merit.  However, it’s also got a great floor plan and some wonderful design features so it’s even better.  Har Mar Superstar, a performer from the area who took his name from the mall, would most certainly agree.

UPDATE 1/2/07: This entry about Har Mar and the closure of the theatres is featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.