Winter, spring, summer or fall--any season's a good season to make a trip to this mall
As noted before, even Money Magazine’s best place to live has a few eyesores. Plymouth Center being one of them and the Four Seasons Mall being another. If you’ve driven on Highway 169 in the Twin Cities within the last 30 years (who hasn’t?), you’ve probably seen this mall. And unless you live in the area, you probably have never been in it. The back of the mall faces the highway, with signage on the structure noting what was probably at one time, a sexy lineup of stores. Today, most of the signs are blank white rectangles.
I made my first, only, and last visit to the Four Seasons Mall on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in August 2009. I have no warm fuzzies about this mall and I don’t know of many former tenants. The Four Seasons Mall was built in 1978 and judging by the wood paneling and totally awesome tiled floors with colored squares placed at random, it likely was never updated.
It’s pretty much empty. There’s a quilt shop, a Fresh & Natural Foods (which is actually pretty busy), one of those for-profit colleges advertised on daytime television, a bridal shop, a pizza place, and Thai restaurant. And that’s about it.
I only saw one other person in this mall: a blue-haired lady who was probably on her way to the quilt shop to pick up some batting for her latest creation. She gave me a funny look. I don’t blame her though; I’m walking around a dead mall with a camera dangling from my wrist. Probably thought I was casing the joint or a misguided tourist.
The barren hallway of the Four Seasons Mall
The interior gave me big time Village North flashbacks. (You know, when Village North was in its decline). I’m guessing they were built around the same time (late ’70s). The mall is depressingly clean and the pumped-in music echos down the empty hallways. And plenty of posted signs at every nook and cranny of this mall banning guns and rollerblades.
You really don’t see a lot of those gunbuster signs anymore, although they are still around. Back in 2003, Minnesota passed conceal carry, causing every business owner to freak out, throwing up knee-jerk reaction “No guns allowed” signs in their windows, thinking a trip to Starbucks was going to turn into a shootout. And rollerblading? Really? I don’t think you need to worry about delinquent rollerbladers, Four Seasons Mall, this isn’t 1992.
Okay, so no gunplay and no rollerblading down the hall. Got it.
Really though, this would be a kick ass place for a bunch of lawbreaking juveniles to break out the skateboard. Not to give anyone ideas. Nothin’ like a little rampz, rails, and trespassing!
According to this article, there is little hope for this mall. The property is up for sale and if it gets any takers, it will likely be razed & redeveloped.
I, personally, know nothing about this mall, but another Dumpy Strip Malls reader with the handle “AFS” posted information in the comments–if this isn’t a “sexy” line up of stores, I don’t know what is!
Four Seasons! Ah, the bygone days of my youth, running through the mall on Tacky Hat Day with the Armstrong cross-country team. Former tenants:
Erickson’s NewMarket: As a young lass I’d kick and scream to shop here instead of that blasted Holiday Plus across the street. If you’ve been in a NewMarket and a Holiday Plus, I shouldn’t explain.
This isn't 1992. Deliquent juvies don't rollerblade anywhere anymore, much less in a mall.
Summit School of Dance: if you weren’t quite snotty enough to go to the Dance Shoppe in “downtown” Plymouth, you went here. Was the feeder school for the Armstrong cheerleader squad, yet not the dance team.
Golden China: awrrrsome all-you-can-eat buffet. My now very obese aunt once walked off with one of the steam trays in Homer Simpson-esque fashion.
Woody’s Our Own Hardware-my dad preferred this place for some reason.
Some sporting memorabilia shop called Team Sports that lasted all of nine months. I remember my mom bought my dad a Quebec Nordiques hat from there for Christmas. Ah, they were a lovely team.
Hobby Time was the name of the hobby store on which the commenter above waxed nostalgic. I remember its train sets vaguely; I believed it was closed by the 1990s.
Some beauty school with students smoking out in front.
A bridal discount warehouse. My mom pointed out a pregnant teen girl shopping for gowns there as a “warning.”
The Fan Man: not once in my 13 years of residence in the 55442 did I see a customer in there. My dad posited that they ran some sort of mail order business, but for ceiling fans? Well, this was Plymouth.
Perfection Hair Stylists, just across the hallway from competitor salon Golden Razor. My parents always took me to GR whilst I secretly yearned for the KMS-ridden haze of Perfection.
Snyder Drug was the other anchor, after NewMarket. The source of many of my prescriptions filled through the years, where I once got a flu shot (meh) and the source of the annual coupon book with 5 free items in every book. Packing for college: 10% done. They didn’t hire me for a part-time job (bugger!) but the post office window inside was where I sent off an envelope to the UK in 1995 in the hopes of joining the Bjork Fan Club.
Some discount book shop that I had been inside all of 10 minutes when I left school early senior year of hs in 1999. The cashier gave me the stink eye.
At its high point, Four Seasons Mall got annual visits from Santa, monthly craft fairs and my Girl Scout troop setting up a table to sell Girl Scout cookies. Some 10 years later, it was where my mom called out fellow mothers of Armstrong’s class of 1999 for making and selling coffee with Four Seasons bathroom tap water.
Marcellos Pizza is still there I believe, and this former Chicago and current NYC resident will admit that its pizza was fanthasthico. Later on, it was where my track team would have carbo-loads. Going the distance, going for speed.
Photos taken August 2009.
#1 by Brandon on June 29, 2010 - 3:43 pm
Quote
I’ve been hoping Four Seasons would appear on this blog! I lived near the mall from ’04-’07. I used to shop at Snyder’s until it closed up a few years ago. It was easier than going to Cub Foods, since that location still doesn’t have self check-out.
Marcello’s is still alive and kicking! I will drive over there for dinner. You’d never know it was attached to such a dump from inside the restaurant. It’s got an old-mall, comfort feeling for people who grew up eating in strip mall restaurants in the 1980′s. This is the only reason I ever go to Four Seasons.
#2 by Johnme on July 2, 2010 - 12:29 am
Quote
I am glad to see you have returned, and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
#3 by Wayzata Dave on July 7, 2010 - 7:29 am
Quote
Welcome back! I kind of thought that was what had happened – except I expected you to surface in Des Moines or Fargo or some corner of the world.
I remember this mall from the early 2000′s – they had around the mall:
1) a Small grocery store – super value of some type – Cub opened across the street and that was the end of that store – it become a natural foods store for a while.
2) Liquor store – not sure how a Liquor store could fail…but it did
3) Summit Dance – When Jan and Marv (Dance Shoppe) decided to get out of the business they sold their studio to the Summit Dance folks. Summit was more focused on Ballet whereas the Dance Shoppe did a lot of styles – they enlarged the Dance Shoppe studio in Plymouth off of Fernbrook and closed the 4 seasons mall location.
4) Hardware store – your dad’s hardware store. It even smelled like a hardware store.
5) an appliance parts store – I actually bought a part there once.
6) The craft / quilting store
7) Hallmark – didn’t every mall have one of these?? They were a nice little hallmark – as those go… but then were sold to a guy that wanted to turn it into a Hallmark / Beanie Baby / Sports Collectable shop – Corporate Hallmark (I picture little old ladies in sunglasses with radios in their ears) visited and they lost their franchise – something about selling collectable ornaments at 2 + times the retail.
9) A legit mens and women’s styling shop – mens on one side the hall and women’s on the other
10) Synders
11) A beauty school
12) Fan Man – Ceiling Fans and Lights – they actually had a store front
13) Bridal Shop
14) Pizza Place- Still there
15) A revolving door of Chinese / Thai / Asian Restaurants
Basically your typical late 70′s strip mall with an enclosure to walk in – kind of in between a pure strip mall and the regional mega-malls.
Dave
#4 by Jason on July 8, 2010 - 4:47 pm
Quote
Ahhh The Four Seasons Mall.
I grew up biking to this mall with friends (as early as 1981). There were two main stops for me: A hobby store (I *think* it was called D&M Hobbies), run by an old couple & Snyder’s ( because they had 2 arcade games in the back). Later I’d spend time at Viking Music and a video rental store, or eating with my family at Marcello’s Pizza and Golden China.
There was also a dance studio where I had a “breakdancing” birthday party
I suddenly feel very old…
#5 by Pseudo3D on July 11, 2010 - 8:36 am
Quote
What is NewMarket and Holiday Plus? I can’t find any information online…
#6 by AFS on July 11, 2010 - 12:58 pm
Quote
@Pseudo3D: NewMarket and Holiday Plus were grocery store chains. NewMarkets were often smaller-scale stores along the lines of a SuperValu or IGA (except I do remember a big boxy suburban-style one on Hwy 101 in western Plymouth).
Holiday Plus was a big box grocery store chain owned by Holiday Companies (also the former parent company of Gander Mountain). There were four of them in the Twin Cities area: Fridley, at 694/University; Roseville (I think); Bloomington and of course, the Plymouth store at County Road 9 and Nathan Lane. In their heyday they were known as Holiday Village and were similar to European hypermarkets like Tesco and Carrefour in that the store was, in the words of a viral video originating from Alabama, “like a mini-mall.” In addition to groceries, it had a clothing/shoe section, music department, jewelry counter, sporting goods, hardware and a furniture department. They scaled back to just groceries and sporting goods sometime in the early 1990s; the sporting goods got spun off into a separate store, Holiday Sports a few years later. Holiday Sports later got rebranded as Gander Mountain once Holiday Co took over said hunting/fishing/camping supply store. In the meantime, Cub took over the Holidays Plus.
Yes, I worked at Gander Mountain. I’m actually a second-generation Holiday Companies employee; my parents met working at the Fridley Holiday. Now let’s all sing: “Holiday Plus, that’s us! A great big wonderful way to shop!”
#7 by Mark T on July 11, 2010 - 9:32 pm
Quote
Boy do we have short memories!
Everybody forgot what was in the far right front corner (or can’t remember):
I think it was first like a Schmitt Music, but then it became a “totally rad”
music store called Knut Koupee…
I took guitar lessons there circa 1987-1989 and it lived on probably to the mid-90′s…
I remember all the other stores and thanks for sharing!
#8 by Wayzata Dave on July 14, 2010 - 7:25 am
Quote
Pseudo 3d – thinkof a less classy version of Pamida – which is about 5 steps down from Wallymart, but with a full foods section. I went into a Holiday Plus one time in Moorhead Mn – had to – open place that was open and on my route –
It mixed the frozen foods with shotguns and fishing gear in a way that was classically tragic.
Yes – they were Minnesota based – but that still doesn’t make it right.
Dave
#9 by Jeanie Hoholik on July 17, 2010 - 11:02 pm
Quote
Wow! Yay! You’re back! I almost gave up on you and just took a quick check back. You are on my blog roll for all of my real estate clients and prospects to view. Please don’t leave us again! Love your posts!
Jeanie Hoholik
TwinCityRealEstateChat.com
#10 by Steven Appelget on August 16, 2010 - 7:51 pm
Quote
I’m pretty sure there was a music store in there at one time.
#11 by Rehcsif on September 1, 2010 - 11:33 pm
Quote
Welcome back! (Just found out you’re back again…)
I’ve lived in Plymouth since 1996 and have been familiar with Four seasons since a few years before that – although I usually only went there to go to Marcello’s or the Chinese restaurant. That mall has been “dead” as the entire time I’ve known it, in that it’s always felt like it was only about half-full, and the tenants it had were mostly “filler”. I remember when the Super Value closed because Cub took over the Holiday Plus across the street (circa 1998?) That space actually stayed empty for almost a decade. I remember going to a large group garage sale in that space in the early 2000′s. The natural foods store is only a few years old, and I’ve never been in there (way too spendy for me I’m sure).
I wish there was still a hobby shop there – I don’t remember that. Hobby shops are an almost extinct breed.
The former Erickson’s off of 101 mentioned in another comment has been closed for several years now as well. I believe it is now planned to become a food shelf/charity type place in the near future, after sitting empty for quite some time.
It’s always puzzled me that Four Seasons never took off better. Certainly the nearby demographics were fine, especially to the west…