Downtown Minneapolis Retail News

[Didier]

It never works, does it?

[twincitizen]

mnmike - Yeah you are probably right. My whole orientation was off. That is them right above Gap. That's a huge missed opportunity to not have any signage facing Nicollet. Chalk it up to "mall mentality"...

[mnmike]

Right?! It really is.

[amiller92]

BR's space has no exterior windows to speak of, and certainly not fronting Nicollet. You can see this pathetic little window display and signage from 7th Street tho: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.976727, ... 312!8i6656

That window isn't actually on the BR space. I'd guess it's just meant to be an exterior sign.

BR is on the Nicollet-facing side of the building, more or less above the Gap. There are windows there, although they do not look in to the retail space and presumably face the store room. You'd think IDS could let them use them for marketing, but they seem not to.

ETA: scroll, then post

[mnmike]

BR's space has no exterior windows to speak of, and certainly not fronting Nicollet. You can see this pathetic little window display and signage from 7th Street tho: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.976727, ... 312!8i6656

That window isn't actually on the BR space. I'd guess it's just meant to be an exterior sign.

BR is on the Nicollet-facing side of the building, more or less above the Gap. There are windows there, although they do not look in to the retail space and presumably face the store room. You'd think IDS could let them use them for marketing, but they seem not to.

Did you read the posts between that one and this one? haha

[PigsEye]

and so should city center and gaviidae commons for starters

Also... is there anything up on the 3rd and 4th floors in that gaviidae commons building? Not the old red side of the RBC Plaza but the blue side with the water fall? Is it open to the public up there for retail?

Nope.

ETA: Also, the waterfall was in the red side that's RBC Plaza, and is now gone.

That was a water fountain in RBC that shot water up and not down. There is the ruminants of a water fall on the upper level of Gaviidee which I don't think has ran for more than a decade now, which is too bad.

Ok, thanks. Do you or anybody else know what that space is used for now? Is it office space up there from pictures online it looks like the glass is all layered with frosted glass and nothing opens up in a traditional retail format. Though it does look like it could easily be converted back to retail if there ever was a need. Wow Nicollet mall must have been flipping epic in it's day! two blocks of 4 story retail plus several other blocks of department stores! I guess it was the "Original Mall Of America!" It's a shame our metro can't support both.

[Silophant]

Office space for BMO Harris, if I remember correctly.

[amiller92]

Wow Nicollet mall must have been flipping epic in it's day! two blocks of 4 story retail plus several other blocks of department stores! I guess it was the "Original Mall Of America!" It's a shame our metro can't support both.

I'm not sure I'd conclude that it was ever successful. Or at least not successful in the era of Gavididea, which my memory says dates to the 1990s (might been late 80s, not sure). The site used to be Donaldson's, before the big fire.

None of the attempts to build downtown malls - including City Center, Gaviidea and Block E - seemed to last terribly long as malls, although obviously well before that Dayton's and Donaldson and the like were successful in the pre-mall era.

[PhilmerPhil]

Martin Patrick 3 undergoing its 3rd expansion.
http://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/ma ... -expansion

[grant1simons2]

Askov Finlayson is moving into their new space August 8th according to Eric Dayton. He was in the store today and I asked when the move was.

[seanrichardryan]

A Bachelor Farmer Cafe is moving into the old space. Its on the HPC agenda.

[widin007]

Martin Patrick 3 undergoing its 3rd expansion.
http://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/ma ... -expansion

Swindler, an unfortunate name for a store owner.

[Wedgeguy]

Wow Nicollet mall must have been flipping epic in it's day! two blocks of 4 story retail plus several other blocks of department stores! I guess it was the "Original Mall Of America!" It's a shame our metro can't support both.

I'm not sure I'd conclude that it was ever successful. Or at least not successful in the era of Gavididea, which my memory says dates to the 1990s (might been late 80s, not sure). The site used to be Donaldson's, before the big fire.

None of the attempts to build downtown malls - including City Center, Gaviidea and Block E - seemed to last terribly long as malls, although obviously well before that Dayton's and Donaldson and the like were successful in the pre-mall era.

The biggest problem with City Center, both of the Gaviidee's, and the now tore down Conservatory it that they were built to be stand alone malls. They at best had one entrance into the malls from the mall. You never could really see what was on the levels above you or around the corners. Most people did not know what was in the malls and developers thought just because vertical worked in Chicago/New York it would work here too. They assumed that people would just keep taking the escalators up to see what was up there. Problem being most of the people shopping downtown were time pressed office workers so they wanted to go where they needed to go. They did not have the leisure of wandering a vertical mall like they could have done back when the tourist oriented vertical malls in Chicago came into style. Even malls like Rosedale and Ridgedale, people really no longer take time to spend an hour or two wandering the mall for bargains anymore. The south part of the mall that is thriving has several doors on each block, while they be mostly restaurants, other shops with street entrances seem do well also.

PS, Gaviidee opened shortly after the Norwest/Wells Fargo Tower opened. Can't remember which of the Twins World Series that they had GO Twins in big letters across one of the floors as it was being build that had not gotten the exterior put up yet. So that would mean 1988 or 1992 would have been the possible years for the First Gaviidee to open. The other opened about 4-5 years later.

[TroyGBiv]

1988... the Capella Building was built in 1992

[Wedgeguy]

Has anyone heard of an opening date for the new Walgreens deluxe?

[rodorkyle]

Got a letter today from BMO Harris (my bank) saying that they would be moving out of Gaviidae to a new location on the skyway level of 50 South 6th effective October 2. That's going to mean a lot of empty space in Gaviidae unless something else is moving in.

[Silophant]

I think September is as much as we know still.

Relatedly, if anyone else was as irrationally concerned as I was that the weird garage doors they had installed on the new Nicollet entrances were permanent, they replaced them with normal doors last week.

[HuskyGrad]

Got a letter today from BMO Harris (my bank) saying that they would be moving out of Gaviidae to a new location on the skyway level of 50 South 6th effective October 2. That's going to mean a lot of empty space in Gaviidae unless something else is moving in.

Presumably the Affinity Plus Credit Union location.

[mnmike]

Oh, maybe, just maybe...some actual retail is interested in moving there, like the rumored Nordstrom Rack. Or maybe it will just be empty.

[mnmike]

Or another bank, I suppose.