Having decided to search for new shop space, we brainstormed a list of possible locations. It looked like this:
- St. Paul
We're a St. Paul store, and a St. Paul zip code was non-negotiable. When it came to neighborhoods, we were completely open — we love the entire city! We looked in our current Cathedral Hill neighborhood, back on Grand Ave, Como, Highland Park, West Seventh, the East Side, Lowertown, Merriam Park, University . . everywhere. We wanted a St. Paul address with easy access for the entire metro.
Here's the thing — the commercial real estate market is tough, and for small, independent businesses? Ridiculous. And a store like ours has special needs: retail space, sure, but also the behind-the-scenes space that makes it all work. We care about design and character, and a cookie-cutter spot in a strip mall doesn't feel like us.
The list of possible spaces was pretty small. We went through one spot that had possibility, until we checked out the basement and found ourselves walking through water. Next!
We stumbled into our new spot a bit by accident, and almost dismissed it without a tour — too big, too much of a reach. And besides, it had most recently been tech offices, and would need a major overhaul. But we loved it. The building started life as an old-fashioned hardware store, and behind all those cubicles and tricked-out offices was the kind of raw, open space we wanted, with a bunch of high-quality extras we couldn't ignore.
Still in St. Paul, just across the river from Minneapolis — a sweet spot.