Downtown Minneapolis’s Gaviidae Common remains anchored by Neiman Marcus and a somewhat attenuated Saks store, and other national retailers (Ann Taylor, Talbots) are still housed there. But in the past year or two, the mall’s manager, Brookfield Properties, has added more locally based retailers to Gaviidae’s mix: the Romeo & Juliet Shop (for those in search of good gifts for their significant others), Finn Style (cool Finnish-design stuff), Suit Up (men’s suits), and Len Druskin Man (a new downtown outpost of the popular clothier in Edina’s Galleria).
Gaviidae is swimming against the tide of long-held conventional wisdom: that downtown retail is in permanent decline, and that the only malls that succeed are stuffed with national chains. The Lindbergh Terminal at the airport has seen a significant bump in retail sales from its local-vendor strategy. We’ll see if it works as well downtown.
