Vantive Group, a Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee, is opening a new 2,000 sf shop at 2425 Rice Street in St. Paul. A separate franchisee group, Kod Kod Enterprises, will open the first Dunkin’ Donuts in the Twin Cities in New Hope. Colliers is representing both franchisee groups.
Childrens Learning Adventure has opened in Maple Grove. This mega childcare center offers infant, preschool, afterschool and summer camp programs, and includes such activities as Imagination Island, complete with miniature shops, a science center and planetarium, a mock TV studio with video cameras, a garden, library and art studio. The Maple Grove location is at the corner of I-494 and Bass Lake Road, taking over the site from the vacant Allygators bowling center that had been vacant there for many years. Childrens Learning Adventure has a second location under construction in the Twin Cities in Chanhassen at Highway 5 and Galpin Road. Stef Meyers from Mid-America represents this retailer.
CNN Money is talking about more store closings. Walmart is closing 269 stores this year, 
with Sears closing 10 Sears and 68 KMart stores. Kohls is closing 18, with Target and Macy’s also announcing shuttered stores. Gap announced last year that they plan to close 175 locations. That’s all on top of those closing due to bankruptcies, including Sports Authority, American Apparel, Hancock Fabrics, RadioShack and others.
Ernie Herman, TJX Companies’ CEO told investors on Tuesday that they plan to grow their number of stores by 50% from their current count of 3,700 locations to 5,600. Herman stated, “We are confident that we can continue to open stores around the world. And these estimates do not contemplate the potential to expand into additional countries or open new chains in existing markets.” TJX opened 219 stores in 2015, and adding another 47 stores in 1st quarter in 2016 with another 150 planned for the rest of the year. Their sales growth trend is up 5 to 7%. In Minnesota, Stephanie Meyer and her team at Mid-America represent TJX.
Kaskaid Hospitality has signed a lease to open a Crave restaurant at the Eden Prairie Center in the space previously occupied by Biaggi’s. This will be their 12th Crave restaurant, and sixth Crave in the Twin Cities. Kaskaid also owns five other restaurants here with varying concepts – Union, Blvd, Avenida Cocina, Burger Burger and Zio Italian. Tricia Pitchford of Mid-America represented the Landlord. With this lease, Mid-America reports the center is 99% occupied, with only 15,850 sf vacant.