Shop and eat. Shop and eat. Shop and eat. Thousands of years from now, anthropologists will study the ruins of the this land
Arbor Lakes
and wonder if all its denizens did was buy shit and stuff their face. Maple Grove’s retail area is obnoxiously huge — acres and acres of parking lots, big box stores, and pretty much every chain restaurant known to man. Except the Cheesecake Factory. Maple Grove needs a Cheesecake Factory.
Where can one find this shopping district? Why, just hop on I-94 Westbound and let the Great River Energy Wind Turbine guide you to the land of impulse shopping bliss.
There are so many shops and restaurants up in the Grove that if you’re not completely familiar with the area, you can feel very overwhelmed. So many of the shops are hidden in different nooks, crannies, and “pedestrian-friendly” streets that trying to find the Jimmy John’s can potentially waste a tank of gas. I live around in this area, so I do come here often, and I STILL get lost.
Some people say that Maple Grove is a soul-sucking suburb with massive shopping sprawl. It’s suburbia on CRACK — a boring, stagnant, nosey, do-goody, community-based, suburban nightmare. Pretentious hipsters LOVE to rag on this place – it’s “vanilla”, it’s in the suburbs, there are chain stores far as the eyes can see, there’s a fucking TGIFriday’s, etc, etc, etc (but we all know they’re secretly shopping at PacSun and Zumiez when they think no one is looking).
But hey, I’m not afraid to admit it – I like this place. I’ll go here to shop and eat, shop and eat, and shop and eat myself, until I’m Pittsburgh Blue in the face.
That said, Arbor Lakes and the surrounding shopping areas deserve a little mocking. 
Enclosed malls are oh-so 20th Century. The new trend is the open-air “lifestyle center” which basically is an enclosed mall but without the pesky amenities that the mall ownership has to provide, like a comfortable indoor temperature, janitors, security on segways, an information desk, etc. Just smear out a shitload of concrete, plant a few undersized trees & wee seedlings, add some parking spaces for the “convenience” and then let Mother Nature be your custodial crew!
According to the Wikipedia entry, construction began in 1998, and was completed in 2003 (5 years seems like an awfully long time to build a shopping area to me, but yep, I can definitely remember it being built in the late ’90s). I imagine this entire area was a big field or gravel pits before construction began.
There are 3 of these separately-named “Lifestyle Center” shopping areas, though they all kind of run into one big massive, sprawling shopping area in my head. It’s tough to distinguish which is which, (and I really don’t think anyone cares!) but this is how *I* break it down.
Main Street Maple Grove : Maple Grove is fucking with your head here. This is that area across Hemlock Lane that looks like downtown in a small, midwestern city. Oh how clever, right? We haven’t seen THAT done before. It’s supposed to make you think you’re in a one-horse town in Central Minnesota. But instead of Rexall Drug and Hardware Hank, there’s a Chico’s and an Ann Taylor Loft, both of which you wouldn’t find in, say, Randall, Minnesota.
This is also where Bylerys and Party City are located, as well as a few restaurants such as Buca and The Claddaugh, (the latter is one of those restaurants that foil you into thinking you’ve found a unique local hole-in-the-wall, but it’s really a chain). Remember, you’re in Maple Grove, Chain HQ of the Twin Cities Metro Area.
Fountains at Arbor Lakes: This is where REI, Dave & Buster’s, DSW, the old Circuit City, Costco, the Running Room, etc are located. I’m still looking for these “fountains”…perhaps they are talking about the drinking fountains?
Then, there’s The Shoppes at Arbor Lakes, where Dumpy Strip Malls took most of the photos.
First off, MISLEADING NAME. Arbor Lakes? I don’t see a lake (though I’ve heard there *IS* an actual lake up in the ‘Grove named “Arbor”, but I don’t know where this mystery lake is. If it’s near the shopping center, it’s probably more akin to a storm run-off drain than a beautiful freshwater lagoon, but I digress), and there isn’t a whole lot of arbor. The imposing Maple Grove skyline consists of a lot of sand & gravel foothills, rouge dumptrucks, and gigantic tumbleweeds blowing about. Come here in the summer and you’d swear you were in a Nevada desert anticipating a wild-west shootout, not in a soul-sucking Minneapolis suburb with every chain restaurant known to man.
Every store here is filled with control-freak soccer moms & their SUV-sized strollers or swarms of teens (OMG!!!) shopping at Hollister, blowing up daddy’s credit card. The “shoppes” here are supposed to be “upscale” but I really don’t see anything here that I can’t find at any other generic mall. There’s a Bath & Body Works, Express, Gap, The Buckle, Ulta, J Crew, Hollister, Talbots, Borders (to name a few) — so yeah, your typical mall fare. However, since all of the stores are designed to look like small town “shoppes” with outdoor-facing enterances, AND there is a nearby California Pizza Kitchen and PF Chang’s, it immediately makes stores like Yankee Candle ‘upscale.’ I suppose if Payless Shoes, Fashion Bug, or DEB wanted to set up shop over in the former Sharper Image store, then we’d have problems.
From the outside, the Arbor Lakes area of Maple Grove seems like a happenin’ place, immune to the shitty economy. It’s still a “happenin’” place, but there have been some store closings. A few off the top of my head are -
The Sharper Image
Cost Plus World Market
Some frou-frou Paris Hilton-style pet clothing store
Krispy Kreme (now being turned into a bank)
Joe’s Crab Shack
…and I’m sure there are more.
Local boutiques are few and far between here because the rent is sky-high…I actually know this first-hand. In 2006, I looked into opening a business of my own over in the “Main Street” shopping area. Yeah, not happenin’.
In the summer, this is a great place to shop. Minnesota summers are beautiful, so it’s nice that they made this place pedestrian-friendly and walkable. When the cold hits, it’s a bitch. I don’t care how many cheery, peppy Miley Cyrus/Jonas Brothers songs they pump through the hidden speakers, it isn’t going to cheer me up in -30 degree weather. Shopping at this outdoor mall in Minnesota just isn’t fun in the middle of January, so I’ll usually avoid this place and go to an indoor mall instead to be warm and cozy.
All in all, Arbor Lakes is a very successful retail center – who says decent, thriving retail can’t exist in the north metro?!
All photos taken Feb. 2009
FYI – I apologize for the lack of updates. My computer crashed on me about a month ago, and I lost most of my work, as well as lots of photos I had taken. I bought a new MacBook last week, so I’ll be back posting updates. 
Information to add? Discuss in the comments!
Welcome to Arbor Lakes!
Ultimate Electronics...I wonder what the over/under in Vegas is on this place going out of business within the next year?
Granite City. Yes, it is a chain. Try their chalupas!
IF YOU LIKE IT THEN YOU SHUDDA PUTTA RING ON IT
I can't really explain why, but I've never liked Borders. I'd rather go to Half Price Books or B&N. Borders reminds me of Media Play. Remember that store?!
Wanna get shit-faced up in the Grove? Houlihan's has HUGE Long Island Iced Teas that will knock you out cold.
I took a picture of this because I really want that cute pink pineapple candle
A few of the Shoppes, including The Buckle, a typical overpriced midwestern mall store.
Le Gourmet Chef is just one of the yuppie-targeted stores
Note to FASHION-FORWARD ladies - Arbor Lakes has a Coldwater Creek!
Christmas lights? STILL? This photo was taken a good 2 months after the holiday
What this place needs is more chain stores and restaurants.
"Inside" of Arbor Lakes
Don't test too many of these scents on your skin at the same time. I did this once, and I walked out of Bath & Body Works smelling like a burning computer.
Speaking of burning, the Ulta store smells like melting makeup
A sale like this would make our founding fathers PROUD.
J CRACK, my favorite store.
Another view of Arbor Lakes
Ugly cardigan @ Express. Sad thing is, I kind of like it. I would totally wear something like this.
