Laurie Crowell, owner of Golden Fig Fine Foods on Grand Avenue, says the recent holiday season was her busiest to date. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

As well-known national brands like Pottery Barn and Lululemon say goodbye to Grand Avenue, some independent business owners along the three-mile corridor said the recent holiday season was their busiest to date.

Shoppers at Golden Fig Fine Foods, a gourmet grocery store on Grand Avenue, were packed shoulder-to-shoulder for two months, said owner Laurie Crowell. The 16-year-old business, located at 794 Grand Ave., had its busiest Christmas in the store’s history, she said.

“All of the businesses around are still busy,” she said, adding that she could name 15 independent businesses off the top of her head that are doing well. “The sky isn’t falling,” she said.

Jim Jacobson, one of the owners of the Grand Hand Gallery at 619 Grand Ave., said the holiday season can run hot-and-cold, but this past season was busier than the year prior.

Jacobson said the gallery’s foot traffic could have, in part, come from the recent reopening of Emmett’s Public House and Saji-Ya Sushi and Japanese Kitchen just down the street at 695 Grand Ave.

Newer stores to the avenue, like Evergreen Collective, which sells sustainable, responsibly-sourced products ranging from cleaning supplies to home goods, are also doing well.

Owner Taylor Hall said her corner of Grand Avenue and Lexington Parkway is bustling per usual.

Located at 1104 Grand Ave., Evergreen Collective opened a year and a half ago and also had a record-breaking fourth quarter where sales were up 21 percent compared to the previous year, Hall said.

Hall, who is the sole employee at her store, said when it comes to marketing she budgets to boost Instagram and Facebook posts, but mostly relies on word-of-mouth and the foot traffic that comes from the avenue.

One thing that Evergreen Collective and Golden Fig have in common is that both of their buildings are locally owned.

“The problem isn’t the avenue, it’s that group,” Crowell said, referring to the out-of-state pension fund that owns some of the corridor’s largest retail spaces.

Vacancies on Grand

Pedestrians walk past the Studebaker Building, one of four Grand Avenue buildings owned by the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, known as STRS Ohio and based out of Columbus, has invested some of its teacher pension funds in real estate, including four buildings along Grand Avenue that it has owned since 2006.

National clothing chains like Lululemon and J. Crew left Grand Avenue in recent years and Pottery Barn, in the STRS Ohio-owned Grand Place Mall, announced it will also leave its Grand Avenue storefront this month.

Box stores are not the only ones feeling the heat, or rather the freeze, along the corridor as local businesses such as the 118-year-old leather goods seller J.W. Hulme closed its Grand Avenue doors and held a liquidation sale last month.

Salut Bar Americain, a brasserie-style French restaurant, opened its Grand Avenue location in 2008 and announced last month it would not renew its lease, which expired this month.

Chief Operating Officer Donna Fahs told the Pioneer Press that several factors contributed to Salut’s closure, including the closing of nearby businesses.

Salut, Pottery Barn, Lululemon, J. Crew, J.W. Hulme and Anthropologie, which closed late 2022, were all in buildings owned by STRS Ohio.

When looking for a storefront for Evergreen Collective, Hall said she was interested in the building where J.W. Hulme used to be, but said the rent would have been twice as high as her current location.

The vacancies along Grand Avenue are “not a sign that the avenue isn’t working,” Crowell said. “It is a sign that [STRS Ohio] isn’t working with the avenue.”

When asked about future plans for the four buildings, STRS Ohio Chief Communication Officer Dan Minnich said in an email, “These buildings are professionally leased and managed by Minneapolis-based companies and have averaged high occupancy during this time. We are working to lease available space consistent with our 18 years of ownership history.”

Where do we go from here?

Chris Jensen, president of the Grand Avenue Business Association, said in an ideal situation, the properties along Grand Avenue would be locally owned, “but we want to work with [STRS Ohio] and have a vibrant Grand Avenue.”

The business association is partnering with the Summit Hill Association, Jensen said, to try to work with STRS Ohio to help them fill the vacancies.

“They are a multi-billion dollar pension fund and small assets like this, I don’t know if they understand the effect they are having on our local community,” Jensen said.

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One way to fill the vacancies, Jensen said, could be to break up some of the larger 9,000-square-foot units into smaller retail spaces, as was done with Cafe Latte’s corner.

One thing seems clear, “This is not a Grand Avenue problem,” Jensen said. Over the last 12 months, 11 new businesses were added to the avenue, half of them restaurants.

Last month the avenue-wide event known as the Grand Meander saw some 6,000 shoppers take to the street, Jensen said. “Grand is thriving and these vacancies don’t show the actual status of the avenue and the businesses.”

Another new business, Roseline’s Candles, recently opened at 1652 Grand Ave. and is planning a Grand Opening event on Feb. 1.

Support from the city?

Still, some Grand Avenue business owners say they face headwinds. Iconic walleye restaurant Tavern on Grand has announced it will close in June, in part because of rising costs and falling traffic on Grand (and the owner’s desire to retire).

While small business owners along the avenue are doing as best they can, the Summit Hill Association in partnership with the Grand Avenue Business Association called out the city recently for their lack of involvement with the avenue.

In a Jan. 10 letter addressed to St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Council Member Rebecca Noecker, the Future is Grand task force highlighted six recommended actions that it gave the city in 2020 “on how the City of St. Paul could support the once-vital commercial corridor of Grand Avenue.”

The six recommended actions called for:

Improving the pedestrian experience
Focusing on accessibility and parking
Protecting the livelihoods of small businesses by slowing taxes and other costs
Planning for future density, open space, residential and commercial areas
Convening local leaders to generate new sources of revenue for investment in infrastructure
Developing solutions for vacant storefronts through short-term tax relief or other means.

Of the six actions, “There has been minimal progress on just one of these recommendations,” the letter stated. The “minimal progress” was identified in the letter as improving the pedestrian experience by repainting crosswalks for Grand Old Day, installing flower baskets and developing an Adopt-a-Tree program for newly-planted boulevard trees.

The letter acknowledges the avenue’s successes like Grand Old Day and the recent opening of Kenton House, a five-story luxury apartment complex at 695 Grand Ave., but also notes “the exodus of businesses, with a majority of closures being in the Summit Hill neighborhood.”

The letter requests a meeting with Carter, Noecker and city staff to discuss the current state of the avenue and create a plan to move forward. “We feel the time has come to move beyond admiration of the problems and move to action,” the letter said.

Noecker said on Jan. 11 that she had met recently with the Summit Hill Association board chair and executive director and separately with the Grand Avenue Working Group to discuss business closures and the future of the avenue. City staff from St. Paul Planning and Economic Development were also in attendance for the latter, Noecker said.

“I convened that Future is Grand task force before COVID,” Noecker said. “They came back with these recommendations that, after COVID intervened, we didn’t get a chance to implement.”

“We need to put renewed attention and energy into this work,” Noecker added. “We’ve been closely in touch.”

Pioneer Press reporter Frederick Melo contributed to this story. 

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