Dumpy Strip Malls » tom petters

The Quarry: Minneapolis, MN

dumpystripmall — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:48:13 +0000

The Quarry's sign tempts passersby. They've got an OLD NAVY - you KNOW you want to stop!

I love The Quarry. I shop here regularly myself – I think I’m at the Target at least twice a week. Just because it isn’t a dumpy mall doesn’t mean I can’t cover it or poke fun. Let’s explore The Quarry, shall we?

A cute monument reminds shoppers to appreciate the fact that Famous Footwear and Office Max moved into the neighborhood. This place was once a real, live, disgusting ROCK QUARRY, you know. And who wants THAT in their backyard?

Located in Northeast Minneapolis off of 35W and Stinson Blvd, The Quarry was built in 1997. It was actually was a rock quarry at some point in time, hence the name. Hmph, if the Quarry was never built, perhaps they could’ve sent Tom Petters and other inmates (perhaps Denny Hecker?) to work on here on the chain gang?

The Quarry has decent stores, and I believe all have been there since the Quarry was built. For being 11 years old and having no turnover, it’s obvious the Quarry is a success. Lots of college students from the U live in this area, so you can’t walk two feet without seeing someone sporting a Gophers shirt.

Stores at the Quarry are:
Home Depot
Rainbow Foods
Famous Footwear
Office Max
Old Navy
Party City
Pet Smart
Target

Last time I checked, Old Navy was still selling Tek Vests

Another thing worth mentioning about the Quarry – for some reason, every time I go here (which is a LOT), there’s always a fire truck in the parking lot. I can’t figure out why that is? Are the performance fleece tops and the acrylic sweaters in the Old Navy store THAT flammable that they need the fire department on site 24/7? Fuck that, just let it burn! Then we can build some condos!!!!

Looks like Old Navy is knocking off Victoria's Secret PINK line. I think I like these better, since they don't have that stupid dog plastered all over them. WTF does a DOG have to do with lingerie, anyway?

DO NOT WANT

Sure, Performance Fleece is tacky and ugly, but I guess it's better than, say, Tim Pawlenty's hideous plaid shirts.

Sure, track suits are great for the gym, but I suggest getting a running skirt instead. It hides the camel toe.

I still don't understand why Old Navy insists on selling dog toys. I don't think your dog cares WHERE you get his toys from. After all, he drinks from the toilet..

After the bridge collapse (dammit, can’t Minnesota build ANYTHING right? I’m looking at you too, METRODOME!), a lot of Minneapolis residents had a very difficult time getting to The Quarry. If you lived south of the bridge collapse site and wanted to get to the Quarry, it wasn’t easy. You had to maneuver through back roads & side streets to get there and I heard it was a hassle. Hearing from friends in the area, a lot of them changed their shopping habits while the bridge was out. You know, someone could’ve made bank & capitalized on the situation by starting up a ferry service in Minneapolis…

Old Navy is ready for the holidays. Are you?

However, It didn’t seem like the Quarry businesses took a hit for the entire year that the bridge was out. Though I did notice that for weekends immediately following the collapse, the Quarry was pretty dead – usually this place is hoppin’ on the weekends. People must’ve found alternative routes to the shopping center because it seemed to bounce back about a month or so following the collapse.

TCF Bank boasts of being open 7 days/week. WTF for? These days, you hardly need to step into a bank, with online banking and most banks having braches in a grocery store and everywhere else.

Did metal-eating slugs cause the bridge to collapse? Gusset plates? Gravity winning yet again? No. The bridge collapse was Kevin McHale’s fault. He trades away Kevin Garnett and the next day, the whole damn state falls apart! (Too soon for a bridge collapse joke…?) I don’t know about you, but it’s been well over a year since the collapse and we still hear the “ARE YOU DRIVING ACROSS A DEADLY ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN?? BRIDGES THAT KILL – NEXT, ON FOX9″ sensationalist stories about how every damn bridge in the state is a danger to society. THERE IS NO TIME!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Anyway, enough about the bridge.

The Target store was remodeled this year. It’s still just a regular “Target” store, not a SuperTarget. I liked how it looked before. Sweet, old skool TARGET:

The Quarry Target T1095 store, pre-remodel (July 2007)

And what it looks like now. All trendy and shit!

Returning items to Target is easy as pie. EATING pie, that is...Making it a pain in the ass!

Looking for Moschino? You be hard-presed to find that in Minneapolis, girl. BUT - you can get Mossimo at Target!

Spend too much time in this aisle and you'll end up looking like Mimi from The Drew Carey Show

Photos taken August 2008 and November 2008.

Mounds View Square: Mounds View, MN

dumpystripmall — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:25:11 +0000

Once a month, nerds gather at the Mounds View Square for the baseball card show

The Mounds View Square strip mall isn’t all that exciting. However, once a month, this tiny strip center turns into a local nerdlair by hosting a sports cards/collectibles show. Lucky me, I visited at the right time!

I should’ve known, since the parking lot was packed for a strip mall of this size (and the fact that this center’s biggest store, Petters Warehouse, is now closed). Who knew sports cards & collectibles were still a big thing these days? Then again, we all know the old saying: “Cars depreciate, action figures appreciate!”

The Sports Cards & Collectibles store is ripe with nerds of all ages buying trading cards. After all, middle school...middle age...hey, ANYTIME is a great time to buy Magic the Gathering cards!

So, once a month, the trolls from Mom’s basement surface, bringing their valuable 1988 Topps Baseball card collection, their Starting Lineup figurines, comics in dust-proof mylar bags, and their 20-sided die (just in case a “Magic” game breaks out. You never know what kind of buffoonery will happen at the MV Sports Card show!) to set up shop at Mounds View Square.

Mounds View Square, during remodel *not my picture, found on a construction site*

Mounds View Square was remodeled in 2006. It used to be where you could walk inside entire mall. With the remodel, most of the interior hallway was demolished and now, most stores are only accessible through the outdoor entrance. The interior hallway is only about 5 stores in length, spanning from the Pink Flower Restaurant to the Petters Warehouse (the Petters Warehouse was not accessible from the interior; the hallway ends just before Petters). I’m not sure why they kept some of the hallway instead of demolishing all of it? Maybe the baseball card nerds had something to do with it? How else would they host the card shows? It’s not like they can move it outside. This is Minnesota; we can’t put that shit outdoors!

The Pink Flower restaurant probably gets lots of business from the sports card show customers. Hope they have lots of Mountain Dew on tap...

I went inside with the intention of snapping some photos, but the places was packed wall-to-wall with soft, doughy mama’s boys that look like a cross between the server admin at my office and Michael Moore. There really wasn’t much to take pictures of though & it was just so crowded in there that getting a decent shot of anything wouldn’t have been easy.

Plus, it had a funny smell in the hallway. It was probably a cross between all the people crowded into such a tiny hallway and the nearby thrift store (those places always have an odd smell).

So I just strolled on through and took in all the nerdiness. Overheard a few guys discuss their fantasy football teams. Fantasy football, whatever…Dude, if I’m looking to fantasize about football, I’d much rather think about Tom Brady’s butt or go play Madden than compile a load of statistics in Excel.

I’m sure there were some shady deals goin’ down too. Card shows are NOTORIOUS for that shit. Yep, think 40 year old dudes trying to hard sell an 8 year old kid some worthless Minnesota Twins cards – “Seriously, kiddo, this Denny Hocking rookie card is worth hundreds!! I have the internet quotes to prove it! And at $50, this card is a STEAL!”

And these “collectibles” shows aren’t complete without people trying to sell their Beanie Baby collections – “Contrary to what you might think, Beanie babies aren’t a waste of money! This collection is an INVESTMENT! Their value will appreciate! Let me show you a chart….”

If you ask me, Pink Flower is...a little too close to "Pink Taco"

Besides the baseball card shows, Mounds View Square’s focal point was the Petters Warehouse. Petters Warehouse closed in October 2008 after Tom Petters was charged with leading a large investment fraud scheme.

Now that Petters Warehouse is closed, where will I buy factory-second Levis and seperated lotion from?

Petters Warehouse was basically an “outlet” store, selling overstock, discontinued products, salvage merchandise, and customer returns. That said, you can imagine the junk you’d find in this store.

Now, to be fair, it wasn’t ALL junk. Petters Warehouse was one of those stores where it depended on what day you visited. Some days = junk. Other days = treasure. In my experience, it was mostly junk.

One time, I saw a boxes upon boxes of “Body Solutions, the Evening Weight Loss Formula.” Remember this shit?! Flashback to the early ’00s – every radio DJ in the Twin Cities hawked this snake oil shit! Lose weight while you sleep! Screw exercise! Fuck following healthy diet! Just drink a teaspoon of this magic liquid and watch the pounds melt away. If PAT EBERTZ was selling this crap, you know it didn’t work. You’d probably be better off wrapping garbage bags around your body and sitting in a sauna for a few minutes than drinking this potion.

Ever dream of being a raccoon? Well, here's your chance! Dig through the trash they sell at Petters Warehouse.

They sold clothing here too. Mostly ugly stuff. Think orange waffle shirts from Kohls in odd sizes. Flannel shirts from Sears with one sleeve longer than the other. Machiavelli-Brand Tupac Jeans. Sweatshirts with thugged-out Looney Tunes characters. Nothing says “sophistication” better than getting your wardrobe from Petters Warehouse!

However, Petters Warehouse is closed for good since Mr. Petters is rotting in a jail cell, awaiting trial.

Instead of seeing this guy hobnob on Lake Minnetonka this summer, we can see him collect trash on I-94!

The rest of this strip mall contains an Anytime Fitness, a Dollar General, a nail salon, a tanning booth, a thrift store, a Cost Cutters, an Aldi, and a few other typical suburban strip mall places.

I also wanted to include the strip mall across the street – Silverview. It’s pretty much abandoned with the exception of a Curves. There really isn’t much to write about. I remember they used to have a Subway over there, but it moved over to the newer strip center near the Wynnsong movie theater.

The Silverview strip mall. A textbook example of a dumpy strip mall

Another view of the Silverview strip mall

Springbrook Mall: Coon Rapids, MN

dumpystripmall — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:09:17 +0000

I’m going to be very honest with you. I don’t know why I am writing about this place. There isn’t much here *to* write about. It’s just your run-of-mill strip center with a few vacancies, forgettable tenants such as a tobacco shop, a Great Clips, and a big box anchor to hold down the fort.

See what I mean? Nothing to see here...except some grass that needs mowing

But this little place holds a special place in my heart (and perhaps those of you who grew up around here) for ONE reason:

The old SPRINGBROOK 4 second-run movie theater!

Yeah, my parents were cheap. Even in the ’80s and ’90s, taking a family of 5 to the movies wasn’t easy on the pocketbook. In fact, our trips to a “real” movie theater were so isolated that I can name every movie we saw: ET, Jurassic Park, and Pinocchio (I know, WTF, right? I “get” ET and Jurassic Park but Pinocchio? Way to be random, mom!). Hey, I don’t blame them. I rarely see a movie in a theater these days anyway, and it’s mostly due to the price. I don’t know of any second-run movie theaters still around, except for that hellhole in Brooklyn Center.

So if we went to the movies, it was at a second-run theater – either the Springbrook 4 or the Terrace Theater in Robbinsdale (closed as well). On Friday and Saturday nights, this place would be PACKED. The lines would be wrapped around the building with thrifty people to see Wayne’s World four months after it was originally released for only $1. Schwing!

The Springbrook 4 opened in 1990 and closed in 2000. Perhaps their employees just couldn’t take all those annoying people walking out of the theaters & quoting lines from popular movies that have already assimilated their way into pop culture months ago. Can you imagine if this place was still around when Napoleon Dynamite came out? I can hear the never-ending citations now – “Your mom went to college!” “Vote for Pedro!” “I caught you a delicious bass” “Don’t be jealous that I’ve been chatting online with babes all day”.

*HEAD EXPLODES* Those poor, poor employees.

Or maybe it was the competition from the shiny new Kerasotes 16 theater that opened in late 1997 that put the nail in the coffin? The Kerasotes 16 opening was a BIG DEAL back in the day. It had – get this – STADIUM SEATING! What a concept! If you’re a “shawty” like me, going to the movies always meant wringing your hands with worry that Sasquatch would plop his rump down in the seat in front of you and block your view. Now that stadium seating is the industry standard, the fucking GREEN GIANT could sit down in front of me and I’d still get to see High School Musical 3 in all of its beautiful cinematographic glory. Well, I’m not sure if that’s such a good thing. I think I’d rather watch the brussel sprouts grow out of the back of the Green Giant’s head than watch Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale yodel peppy songs and do the jitterbug in front of a bunch of lockers. These days, Kerasotes 16 is kind of a dump.

Today, the Springbrook 4 is now part of a Sears Outlet.

Sears Outlet - this section of the strip mall is where the Springbrook 4 Theater was located

Sears Outlet moved from its former location in Fridley, off of Moore Lake Road. Not sure when that happened, must’ve been sometime this decade. The old Sears Outlet location turned into a Petters Warehouse (or should I say “Front for a Ponzi Scheme”? tsk, tsk…) for a while, but it moved over to a strip mall in Moundsview. Now it’s some “Great Deals” place that’s open like every third Thursday of the month or something incredibly inconvenient.

Tom Petters, center. Those sawed-off little guys are ALWAYS trouble! (photo from StarTribune)

HOWEVER – I’m veering from the topic of this post. I’ll cover the closed Petters Warehouse store when I write about the Moundsview strip mall in which it was located.

Walk into Sears Outlet and you'll probably find remnants of the VCR age

I didn’t venture inside of Sears Outlet. I only hope that this new location is a bit more organized and clean than it was when it was over in Fridley. That place was a fucking mess, especially the electronics section (its biggest draw). Think extension cords strewn about the aisles, exposed electrical wire half on the spool, and refurbished decade-old electronics with half of the parts missing.

But of COURSE there's retail space available! A strip mall isn't a strip mall without an empty storefront these days

Target Store #T-820.

Target Greatland opened in July 1992. Store # T-820. Yeah, I used to work for Target. I know this stuff. You don’t see too many Target Greatlands these days; most have been converted into SuperTargets.

Red and green awnings give the Springbrook Mall a year-round holiday ambiance. I bet Gentle Dentistry has some KILLER Black Friday specials...

Another former tenant worth mentioning is Autofun, which opened in 1998 and closed in 2001. This store specialized in aftermarket car accessories and was located near the Springbrook 4 end of the strip mall, though I can’t quite remember its exact location. You could find anything from musical sun visors to Elmer Fudd mudflaps to sub woofers in that store. According to a friend of mine (a former employee), it went under because the business model was dependent on having multiple stores, due to buying power. The financial backers pulled out before they expanded the company. They were very similar to Best Buy (in fact, the owner of Autofun was one of Best Buy’s founders) in terms of selling product at low prices, which could only work if you purchased in huge bulk to drop the price per unit. Since they only had one store, it was a loss with almost any product sold. Their original intent was to open 20+ stores within 6 months of opening, which would have dramatically lowered the price per unit since they would have been buying 20 times more than they were.

The colorful flags tell me there's a PARTY inside of the China King Buffet! Why, I bet it's booze-fueled sex romp where anything goes! Party up in here! I wonder if the DJ will play "Willennium" if I ask nicely?

The rest of the stores aren’t really worth mentioning. There used to be a Goodwill in this shopping center, but I believe it closed in late 2005 or early 2006.

Even though video rental stores seem to be phasing out, I doubt this Blockbuster Video will go out of business anytime soon. Remember, this *is* Coon Rapids & there are a bunch of people still stuck in the '80s.

There’s a few places that exist right around the Springbrook Mall. There’s a Blockbuster Video, Payless Shoes, Panera Bread, Caribou Coffe, and a Half Price Books. And of course, the biggest draw if you have a discerning taste for soggy seafood – Red Lobster.

The only thing this place has going for it is its cheesy biscuits

All photos were taken in August, 2008.