After 13 years serving the Twin Cities, whimsical boutique clothing retailer Poppy will close its doors at the end of the month.

First known as Poppy Togs and Clogs when it opened on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul in 2011, Poppy grew to three locations at its height and will say goodbye to its last remaining storefront at 867 Grand Ave. on Jan. 30.

In deciding to close the final location, Poppy owner Jill Henderson said she has only two years left to spend with her teenage children; she also has parents in their mid-80s whom she wants to care for.

“Family first! This is truly why Poppy is closing,” Henderson said in a statement.

Poppy’s Minneapolis location closed its doors in 2019, and just a few years later in 2022, the boutique’s flagship storefront at 251 Snelling Ave. closed due to obstacles brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Henderson said.

“After COVID, it would have made more sense to close like millions of other businesses did, but I didn’t want to be 10 years in and defeated by COVID,” she said.

“If Poppy was to go forward, I could only afford to do it with one store and that location was Grand Avenue,” she said, adding that nearby businesses like Anthropologie, Lululemon and Pottery Barn brought more people to the area.

In addition to family obligations, Henderson said there is an elephant in the room, or along the avenue rather, that is contributing to the struggle of local small businesses.

New management

In a Facebook post announcing the closure, Henderson called out the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, a Columbus-based pension fund that owns buildings along the avenue, including Poppy’s.

A pedestrian walks past the an empty storefront that reflects one of three buildings at the corner of Grand Avenue and Victoria Street in St. Paul owned by out-of-state pension fund — the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio photographed on Wednesday, June 14, 2023. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“The State Of Ohio Teachers Retirement Union has gutted the storefronts on OUR BLOVED Grand Avenue & made it really, really, really HARD to be a small business on Grand,” Henderson wrote on Facebook.

Earlier: Prominent St. Paul corners — some with notable vacancies — are owned by an out-of-state pension fund

Recent closures along the avenue include Salut, Pottery Barn, Lululemon, J. Crew, J.W. Hulme and Anthropologie, which were all in buildings owned by STRS Ohio.

“Grand has been fantastic, the neighbors, the community, it’s all fantastic,” Henderson said. “Grand only has one problem and that’s STRS Ohio.”

Henderson said the vacant storefronts in STRS Ohio-owned buildings made her 13th year in business harder than her first.

“You need the synergy of multiple retailers to bring people in,” Henderson said, emphasizing the shoppers she used to attract from nearby suburbs like Woodbury and Eagan.

Representatives from STRS Ohio declined to comment, but the fund has new, local management that is helping improve relations on the avenue.

“We’re sorry to see Jill go, but she’s made a decision not to renew her lease,” said Martha Anderson, president of Anderson Property Management in Edina, which took over managing the STRS Ohio properties in May. Anderson said the management company became aware of Poppy’s closing after seeing signs in the window.

‘Thank God they took over’

Since Anderson Management took over for Escom Properties, the avenue’s relationship with STRS Ohio has seen a major shift, said Chris Jensen, president of the Grand Avenue Business Association.

As opposed to the previous building managers, Jensen said the communication and collaboration with Anderson Management has gone smoothly.

In one such collaboration this past year, the youth circus school Circus Juventas displayed more than 30 costumes from past shows in the windows of the former Pottery Barn space along the corner of Grand and Victoria Street.

For the upcoming St. Paul Winter Carnival Grande Day Parade, STRS Ohio again donated the former Pottery Barn space to be used for a winter display, Jensen said, a deal that he credits to Anderson Management for making happen.

“Thank God they took over because we don’t know where we would be without them,” he said of the management company.

“The change occurred when we came on as management. We got the requests and filtered everything to STRS Ohio,” Anderson said, adding that before her company took over, STRS Ohio hadn’t received previous requests.

“Every time there’s an opportunity to promote this neighborhood, we are 100% behind it,” Anderson said. “(STRS Ohio and Anderson Management) want to do anything we can to promote these corners while (real estate broker) JLL is in the process of re-tenanting the corners.”

New business on the avenue

Halloween Blizzard the cat entertains patrons at Catzen Coffee on Grand Avenue in St. Paul on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025. The specialty coffee shop with cats opened its doors Jan. 1. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

While there are noticeable vacancies along the avenue, Grand has also welcomed more than a few new businesses in the last year, including gourmet cookie shop Baking Betty’s, Grey Area dispensary and Music on Grand, a music school for students of all ages.

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Just this month, Catzen Coffee, a cat cafe that serves up specialty coffee alongside four-legged company, celebrated its grand opening with a line out the door and down the block.

Also new to the avenue is bakery Razava Bread Co., which offers a variety of styles, from the house razava loaf to sourdough to New York- and Jerusalem-style bagels.

Want to visit Poppy?

When: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily until Jan. 30.
Where: 867 Grand Ave.
Details: Free earrings with $50 purchase.