Minneapolis' Southdale Center

A vintage SOUTHDALE CENTER trademark. This highly-historic shopping complex was the first developed by Minneapolis' Dayton Company (which later morphed into the Target Corporation).
Graphic from Victor Gruen Associates

Autumn 1954 and America's first regional-class, fully-enclosed shopping mall is in the early stages of construction.

Photo from http://www.mnhs.org  / Minnesota Historical Society / Southdale Mall

By the autumn of 1956, finishing touches are being added to the indoor Garden Court.
Photo from http://www.mnhs.org  / Minnesota Historical Society / Southdale Mall

October 8, 1956. SOUTHDALE CENTER opens for business. The complex encompasses over 800,000 leasable square feet and will eventually house seventy-five stores and services.

Photo from http://www.mnhs.org  / Minnesota Historical Society / Southdale Mall

Tomorrow's Main Street Today! Click on the arrow to watch a short film about Greater Minneapolis' revolutionary SOUTHDALE CENTER.

Video from University of Wyoming American Heritage Center / Victor Gruen Papers

A layout showing the orientation of the mall's split-level parking area. There were fifteen individual lots, each named after an animal. This was done to make it easier for departing mall patrons to find their cars among the 5,200 spaces provided.

SOUTHDALE CENTER TENANTS 1956:

DAYTON COMPANY (with Valley View Room restaurant and public auditorium) / L.S. DONALDSON (with Minnesota Room restaurant and public auditorium) / RED OWL supermarket / F.W. WOOLWORTH (with luncheonette) / Anderson Shop China & Glassware / The Cotton Shop / Bachman's Florist / Roy H. Bjorkam, Inc. ladies' wear / Boutell's Furniture / Bringold Meats / Suzy Hats / Brown Photo / Buttrey Stores, Incorporated ladies' wear / Chandler's Shoes / Baker's Shoes / DeLaria Delicatessen / Edina Liquor Store / Egekvist Bakery / Fanny Farmer Candies / Farm & Orchard Fruits & Vegetables / Farnham Stationers & School Supplies / First Southdale National Bank / Gager's Handicraft / Flagg Brothers Shoes / John W. Heller ladies' wear / Household Finance Corporation / Jack & Jill Children's Shop / J.B. Hudson Jewelers / Jackson-Graves ladies' wear / Juster Brothers men's wear / Juvenile Shoes / Kelco Storeware / G.R. Kinney Shoes / Kiddie Koral children's amusement area (with zoo) / Fashion Beauty Salon / Marshall Wells Hardware / Minneapolis Gas Company / Mode O'Day Frock Shop / Marvin Orek & Associates ladies' wear / Peck & Peck / The Purple Door Greeting Cards / Pets Unlimited / Peter Pan Restaurant / The Record Shop / Richman Brothers men's wear / P. Schlampp & Sons Furiers / Shirley's Maternity Fashions / Sidewalk Cafe / Slenderella Figure Salon / Southdale Men's Store / Southdale Appliance Repair Center / The Toy Fair / Thorpe Brothers Real Estate / United States Post Office / Walgreen Drug (with luncheonette) / Walter's, Incorporated ladies' wear / White Way Cleaners / Wirt Wilson & Company

OUTPARCELS:
Southdale Garden Center / Pure Oil service station / Western Oil & Fuel Company    

A high-definition Complete Plan of the Lower Level of SOUTHDALE CENTER, as it was situated at the mall's October 1956 grand opening. All thirty-three operational tenants are shown.

A Complete Plan of the mall's circa-1956 Upper Level, with includes all of its twenty-nine inline stores. Six freight transport "cores" are shown in medium gray. Each of these had a freight elevator, passenger elevator and set of stairs.

A cut-away view of the SOUTHDALE CENTER Garden Court. The tall structure on the left is the 45-foot-high bird aviary, which, as per Victor Gruen's instructions, was stocked with sixty songbirds. Bird cages such as this became a standard fixture of America's early shopping malls.

Roy H. Bjorkman, one of ten ladies' wear stores in the original mall. It occupied a space on the Upper Level, near the Donaldson's mall entrance.
Photo from http://gruenassociates.com / Gruen Associates

A color postcard pic of the SOUTHDALE Garden Court. The 100-foot-wide plaza provided shoppers a respite among its fountains, flora and fauna. There were also a Sidewalk Cafe and modern art sculptures. The new concepts presented here were emulated in every interior mall built in America over the next 30 years.

Photo from the Dayton Company / https://www.shorpy.com / Shorpy, The American Historical Photo Archive 

Southdale's primary anchor, Minneapolis-based Dayton's, is seen on the left of this image. The mall's F.W. Woolworth 5 & 10 occupied a 2-level store on the Lower and basement floors of the complex.
Photo from http://gruenassociates.com / Gruen Associates

A frontal view of the Red Owl supermarket at SOUTHDALE CENTER. The Parcel Pick-up Area and Lower Level Mall Entrance are visible.

Photo from Red Owl Stores, Incorporated Annual Report 1956

A rare peek into the Red Owl supermarket at SOUTHDALE CENTER. 

Photo from Red Owl Stores, Incorporated Annual Report 1967

A 1956-vintage interior view of the Dayton's Southdale store. Here we see the "TV-Radios" Department.
Photo from http://www.mnhs.org  / Minnesota Historical Society / Southdale Mall

Shoppers peruse merchandise on the upper level of the newly-opened Woolworth's.
Photo from http://www.mnhs.org  / Minnesota Historical Society / Southdale Mall

In this vintage view, we see the back side of the shopping center and Camel Lot parking area. On the Lower Level, going left-to-right, are White Way dry cleaners and Edina Liquors. Store fronts visible on the Upper Level are the Fashion Beauty Salon and Roy H. Bjorkman and Jackson-Graves dress shops.
Photo from http://gruenassociates.com / Gruen Associates

The first of many SOUTHDALE expansions was added to the northeast side of the center. A thirty-three-store Gallery Court wing (in medium gray) was inaugurated in October 1971. Its anchor department store, J.C. Penney, opened in March 1972. The construction project also added a multilevel parking garage to the complex.

The mall's second major enlargement was built between 1989 and 1992. It brought a new Dayton's and two parking garages. The old Dayton's (in medium gray) was sectioned into three floors of inline stores, including an 11-bay Food Court. Its basement housed additional storage for the new Dayton's.

An early 2000s view of the SOUTHDALE Garden Court. For years, the local historic preservation board mulled over having the iconic shopping mall designated as an historic landmark. They finally concluded that, being as how the mall has been remodeled so many times, there was not enough of its original structure remaining to warrant any type of historic recognition or preservation.
Photo from Wikipedia / "Gephart" 

Trendz On Top, a teenage apparel district, was installed in Third Level space (the upper floor of the original Dayton's) in 2002. Its trendy tenants included Front Row Sports, Gadzooks, Zumiez, The Buckle and PacSun.
Photo from Wikipedia / "Gephart"

By 2012, the Dayton's store (built in the early '90s) has been rebranded twice. It morphed into a Marshall Fields in 2001 and became Macy's in 2006. The Mervyn's (nee' Donaldson's and Carson's) space sat vacant for over 7 years before a Herberger's opened, in late 2011, to fill its vacancy. 

After four major renovations, the nation's -and world's- first fully-enclosed, regional-class shopping mall encompassed around 1,339,000 leasable square feet and housed 124 stores and services. In this photo, we see its new Northwest Entrance. 
Photo from www.simon.com / Simon Property Group 

Modifications continue into the 21st century. Dave & Buster's opened in August 2015. J.C. Penney closed for good in July 2017. The abandoned store was demolished and replaced by an upscale fitness facility. Herberger's bit the dust in August 2018. Its building was retenanted by a Puttshack mini-golf complex and Kowalski's Market grocery store. 

SOUTHDALE CENTER
West 66th Street and France Avenue South
Edina, Minnesota

With his NORTHLAND CENTER project in suburban Detroit under construction, master mall architect Victor Gruen was on a roll. In 1952, he was commissioned by Minneapolis' Dayton Company to design a retail complex for the Twin Cities. The prospective center was to be built on an 82 acre tract, 8 miles southwest of downtown Minneapolis, in the Village of Edina. The land parcel had been part of the Robinson-Day Farm.

SOUTHDALE CENTER was to be a revolutionary retail complex. Whereas stores in contemporary shopping centers faced outward, toward the parking lot, most in SOUTHDALE would face inward. There would be little exterior signage defining individual stores.

Freight would be brought into the center via an underground "truck road" tunnel. From an adjacent basement, stock would be taken to stores through a system of six "core" elevators. All of this would be completely out of sight of the shopping center's patrons. SOUTHDALE was modeled on the concept of a European city center. It would serve as a suburban place for shopping and socializing...specially adapted to fit America's emerging car culture.

Ground was broken at the site on October 29, 1954. On October 8, 1956, America's first regional-class, fully-enclosed shopping mall opened for business. The 20 million dollar, 810,000 square foot, structure was centered around a 3-story, 100-foot-wide, Garden Court, which had tropical landscaping, sculpture, a fountain pool, Sidewalk Cafe and 45-foot-high bird aviary.

There were two main retail floors, as well as a small Basement Concourse. This area contained a post office, mall office, public restrooms and Children's Center. The split-level parking area surrounding the complex was named for animals, such as "Alligator", "Rooster", "Fox" and the like; this done to make it easier for shoppers to remember how to get back to cars parked somewhere in the 5,200 spaces provided.

Anchoring SOUTHDALE CENTER were a 3-level (195,000 square foot), Minneapolis-based Dayton Company and 3-level (140,000 square foot), Minneapolis-based L.S. Donaldson. The latter was designed by Seattle's John Graham, Junior.

The initial tenant list of sixty-two included Walgreen Drug, Baker's Qualicraft Shoes, Marshall Wells Hardware, Edina Liquors, Buttrey's ladies' wear, Richman Brothers men's wear, an F.W. Woolworth 5 & 10 and Red Owl supermarket. There were eventually seventy-five tenants spaces. Outparcels of the original mall were a Dayton's Garden Shop and Pure Oil Company and Western Oil & Fuel Company filling stations.

The first expansion at SOUTHDALE CENTER added a third floor (or fourth level) to Dayton''s, enlarging the store to 255,000 square feet. This project was completed in 1963. Minnesota's first twin movie theater, the General Cinema Corporation Southdale I & II, opened on September 21, 1966.

The 1,950 seat venue was built, as a freestanding structure, in the southeastern periphery of the mall. It was renovated into the Southdale I-II-III in 1975 and became the Southdale I-II-III-IV in 1980. The theater was shuttered August 16, 1990 and demolished soon after.

The first major expansion of SOUTHDALE CENTER added a Gallery Court wing to the northeast side of the complex. Thirty-three stores joined the directory on October 7, 1971. These included J. Riggings, Milton's, Spencer Gifts, Wrangler Wroost and a Merle Norman Cosmetic Studio. The addition was anchored by a 4-level (247,000 square foot) J.C. Penney, which opened for business on March 1, 1972.

Retail rivals of SOUTHDALE included KNOLLWOOD MALL (1972) {4.6 miles northwest, in St. Louis Park} and EDEN PRAIRIE CENTER (1976) {4.8 miles southwest, in Eden Prairie}. GALLERIA EDINA, situated adjacent to the south side of the SOUTHDALE site, started out in 1959 as a freestanding furniture store. This was expanded into an enclosed shopping center in 1974.

Fearing major competition from MALL OF AMERICA, which was being built only 4.3 miles southeast, the owners of SOUTHDALE embarked on another expansion in 1989. This began with the construction of a new 4-level (359,600 square foot) Dayton's. Added to the northwest side of the existing mall, it was connected with two new parking garages. The original Dayton's closed August 7, 1990, with the new location being launched on August 9th.

The former Dayton's structure was subdivided into sixty inline stores. These included Petits, The Body Shop and an 11-bay Food Court. The Garden Court was also doubled in size. Tenants in the old Dayton's began opening in July 1991, with store dedications continuing into the following year. In November 1993, a (44,900 square foot) Marshalls opened in the basement of the complex.

Work on the next expansion of SOUTHDALE CENTER got underway in January 2001. The southeast corner of the complex was enlarged. A new multiplex, the MegaStar Cinemas Southdale Center 16, showed first features on November 9, 2001.

At the same time, The District On France, an adjacent streetscape of sit-down restaurants, debuted with P.F. Chang's China Bistro. This eatery was followed by The Cheesecake Factory (May 2002), California Pizza Kitchen (July 2002) and Maggiano's Little Italy (November 2002).

A section of teen-oriented shoppes, Trendz On Top, was installed in Third Level space of the old Dayton's. These modifications increased the leasable square footage at SOUTHDALE to approximately 1,339,000, with space for 158 stores and services.

The Dayton's store morphed into a Marshall Field's in August 2001 and was rebranded by Macy's September 9, 2006. Donaldson's was rebranded a Chicago-based Carson Pirie Scott August 10, 1988 and Hayward, California-based Mervyn's July 29, 1995. This store was shuttered in July 2004. The MegaStar multiplex was rebranded, as the American Multi-Cinema Southdale 16, in early 2004.

The Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group assumed ownership of SOUTHDALE CENTER in April 2007. The company, in a joint venture with San Francisco-based Farallon Capital Management, acquired the Arlington, Virginia-based Mills Corporation. SOUTHDALE had been a Mills property since January 2005.

An indoor-outdoor face lift was done at SOUTHDALE between December 2011 and December 2012. The 32 million dollar project altered the Gallery Court wing, creating a more direct link between the Penney's store and Garden Court.

Moreover, a 10-bay (Second Level) Food Court was created in front of J.C. Penney. Lastly, new restrooms, lighting, landscaping, and a children's play area were installed and all mall entrances were rebuilt.

Accompanying these improvements was a new anchor for SOUTHDALE CENTER. Minnesota-based Herberger's was signed for 135,000 square feet of the 179,000 square foot Donaldson's-Carson's-Mervyn's building. This new anchor opened for business on November 9, 2011, but closed for good in August 2018.

Marshalls pulled up stakes in 2013. The vacant space was filled by an Omaha-based Gordmans off-price department store, which began business on July 16, 2015. The mall's old Food Court, and adjoining Third Level space, was reconfigured as a (41,500 square foot) Dave & Buster's Grand Sports Cafe. It welcomed its first patrons on August 3, 2015. The Gordman's store proved to be short-lived. It went dark in 2017. 

J.C. Penney shuttered their circa-1972 store on July 31st of the same year. It was demolished and replaced by a 2-building LifeTime Athletic facility. The 3-level (120,000 square foot) structure housed a fitness center, spa, cafe, kids activity center and rooftop swimming pool. An adjacent 3-level (60,000 square foot) building included an "indoor turf facility", small section of retail and a floor of leased office suites. The complex opened for business on December 3, 2019.

As for the vacant Herberger's, its first level was reconfigured as a (34,000 square foot), Woodbury, Minnesota-based Kowalski's. This supermarket welcomed first shoppers in September 2024. It harkened back to the Red Owl supermarket that had operated in the SOUTHDALE mall for 17 years. 

Sources:

The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

"Dual Anchor Shopping Centers 1952-1965" / Richard Longstreth

Dayton Hudson Corporation Annual Report 1972

https://www.cinematreasures.org

Southdale Tenant List / Press Release / Ruder & Finn, Inc. / October 7, 1956

Universal Productions Southdale Prospectus / Press Release / Ruder & Finn Inc. / October 7, 1956

About Town: The Official Magazine of The City of Edina / Winter 2007 / "Southdale Started A Revolution 50 Years Ago" / Joe Sullivan

http://www.southdalecenter.com (website on Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

https://rsparch.com / RSP Architects

https://www.simon.com/mall/southdale-center