Target made public on its blog this week that it's looking to install a "TargetExpress" store next year in Highland Park.
What the retail giant hasn't revealed is where, exactly. On social media, speculation has leaned toward the still-occupied Barnes and Noble bookseller site at 2080 Ford Parkway, though the dimensions seem off. The store is too big for a mini-Target.
Here's one social media pontificator weighing in:
I was surprised to see that a Target Express is planned for Highland Park in 2015. ... Many were speculating that it would be built at the Ford site, but that would be an impossible timeline for 2015. The Barnes & Noble site would be ideal in terms of prominence and demographics, but I agree that traffic would be a significant problem. It might work if Chipotle moved out. The new Dinkytown Target Express has 40 parking spaces, which seems to be about what would then remain available for Target guests. This is still kind of tough for me to swallow.
I suspect this Target Express is planned for W. 7th St or Shepard Rd. Part of Sibley Plaza or the former US Bank office could be rapidly developed on this timeline. The Dinkytown store took one year to go from concept through new construction to opening.
This is, of course, St. Paul, so there's bound to be some strong feeling on social media about a big box retailer moving into the neighborhood, even if it arrives without a big box. Here's another opinion from online:
Barnes and Noble is the site that (they were) looking at last year. Get ready for traffic nightmares -- as if that intersection isn't bad enough. How can we stop this????
Others think Target should go whole hog. Dave Brennan, a retail specialist at the University of St. Thomas, thinks that rather than go into Highland Park with an express shop, "it would seem to me that a better solution would be to put a full-blown Target store in that area, which is really underserved."
One idea, though certainly not something that could happen by 2015, would be to move onto the now-vacant site of the Ford assembly plant, which sat on more than 120 acres of land along Ford Parkway. The city envisions a "go-slow" planning approach there, so that won't happen overnight.
Target has been "experimenting a little more in the past few years" with different store sizes and formats, said Brennan. The latest example of a TargetExpress just opened in Dinkytown.
The post Target says it's coming to Highland Park in 2015, but where? appeared first on City Hall Scoop.
