Nicollet-Lake - greater Kmart area

[John]

http://www.startribune.com/local/blogs/ ... krOQrWB.97

Kmart, landlord, and city finally meet.

A very positive sign to get the ball rolling on this critical redevelopment project

[grant1simons2]

What if Kmart thought of an idea similar to Target and CVS by implementing a more city style store. It would be flush with the sidewalk like the CVS on Lagoon and Lake. Most of the people who go to that Kmart live in the area and drive because well.. They find it easy. Or, they could build underground parking seeming that the parking lot never seems to be that full.

[seanrichardryan]

They *will not build a suburban style store. That would be a non-starter.

[MNdible]

Sounds like it will need to be built roughly on the NE corner of Lake & Nicollet, at least fairly tight to the street, since they're planning on operating the old store until the new one is completed.

I also think that we can also fairly assume that should this project go forward, the city is going to have to subsidize a fair amount of structured parking as part of the deal.

I wonder if KMart carries too much stigma to ever broaden their appeal. Anecdotally, I know several people who I've spoken with will go past the KMart and the Supervalu on a daily basis when going between downtown and south Minneapolis and never think of going to those stores.

[seanrichardryan]

Kmart is a retail powerhouse with well stocked, lovely stores in the East Coast market, a far cry from our neglected sh*thole on Nicollet. A renewed store would likely draw additional retail traffic by appearance alone.

[uptowncarag]

Kmart is a retail powerhouse with well stocked, lovely stores in the East Coast market, a far cry from our neglected sh*thole on Nicollet. A renewed store would likely draw additional retail traffic by appearance alone.

LOL

[schmitzm03]

It is hard to believe based on their presence here. I was skeptical, too, but this is no joke. I just googled "kmart new york" and there are apparently a couple of kmarts in Manhattan (and many more throughout NYC). They have a much better street presence than any urban Target I've seen (which only includes MPLS and DC).

[mullen]

it's actually a pretty clean store on the inside. the monstrosity of a parking lot and and the 70's suburban design on the other hand.

[Wedgeguy]

Like City Center in DT, The outward appearance will keep many people from even going in to check it out. The broken up parking lot does a lot to distract from the neighborhood. This is where investing a few dollars on the outside would hopefully pay dividends on the bottom line with more customers willing to go in and check it out.

[mister.shoes]

It is hard to believe based on their presence here. I was skeptical, too, but this is no joke. I just googled "kmart new york" and there are apparently a couple of kmarts in Manhattan (and many more throughout NYC). They have a much better street presence than any urban Target I've seen (which only includes MPLS and DC).

I can confirm this. The first time my wife and I went to NYC, we took the train in from NJ to Penn Station. We got a little turned around trying to find public bathrooms underground, but found our way to the street by way of a multi-level Kmart. It was hectic, yes, but a totally different Kmart experience than that which we have here.

[woofner]

It's great that Kmart (or is it KMART) can't even manage to capitalize itself consistently throughout a one-page letter.

I don't think Kmart needs to broaden their appeal, short term at least. Anecdotally, there are also lots of people in the neighborhood who use this store like an enormous dollar store. Empirically, it is one of their highest-performing stores, so someone must be shopping there.

But of course a rebuilt store should have minimal setback, lots of windows, and doors on Lake and/or Nicollet. I'm just nervous about what the requirement to keep the old store operating during construction would mean for the site plan of the redevelopment. Will they be willing and able to do a vertical mixed-use project with underground parking while half the site is still a big box blob?

[mulad]

The parking lot area south of the Kmart and east of the right-of-way that Nicollet would occupy is only a few percent (~4%) smaller than the footprint of the existing building, so I don't think there's a huge challenge to fitting in a new structure.

[mplser]

The challenge is not fitting into a new structure, but making said structure have an urban layout.

[nickmgray]

this kmart doesn't need more than 100 parking spots. Half of those could be street parking around the store and the other half could be under the building. This either needs to be a multi-level kmart of a single level store with residential or office space above it. While we still have quite a bit of open space for new development, the city needs to set an example here and show how large projects should look. There's no sense in doing this if they are just going to relocate the store to one side and not mandate an urban store that meets the street and adds something of value to the area.

[uptowncarag]

It is still a K-Mart.

[ECtransplant]

I grew up in New York. While it's been a long time, I'd say that KMart was viewed more positively out there

[Wedgeguy]

We here in Minnesota are more biased towards Target as it is a home state company. I think that Kmart put money into area where Target was not strong years ago and left MN stores to get what they could out of the leases that they had. Both Wally World and Target are a first choice with most people in this state. Also most of Kmart's stores are 30-40+ years old where Target and Wally are less than 20 here in Mn. Where they had strong competition they did not do enough to hold onto market share. They did little investing here in the Midwest as far as I can tell.

[uptowncarag]

I am just giving people a hard time. I would love to see an urban K-Mart put on this sight. The more choices we have with retail the better. I would also love a CityTarget somewhere in the uptown area. Nicollet needs to be open. It would thive all the way from downtown to the Richfield border.

[mattaudio]

I still don't understand the desire to have Nicollet "open" -- I want to see it reconnected, but that's not necessarily the same thing. Having the block between the Greenway and Lake be for transit/bike/ped only would really help keep the feel of Eat Street, where Nicollet is more of a space shared by all users rather than dominated by the automobile.

[Wedgeguy]

I still don't understand the desire to have Nicollet "open" -- I want to see it reconnected, but that's not necessarily the same thing. Having the block between the Greenway and Lake be for transit/bike/ped only would really help keep the feel of Eat Street, where Nicollet is more of a space shared by all users rather than dominated by the automobile.

The section of Eat Street is basically 3 lanes and dominated by autos. When they rebuild those sections, 28th to Lake, they can do what every they feel they have the money to do. Make wider sidewalks, have bump outs to have setback parking, or put in bike lanes.They basically have all the ROW that they want to use as there is nothing stopping them as far as buildings constraining how wide they can go.