St. Paul's Grand Ave. is ever changing

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom. ••• It's easy to understand why people are anxious about the future of St. Paul's Grand Avenue. When a major retailer like Pottery Barn announces that it is leaving a shopping district, it can seem less like a canary in a coal mine than like a dinosaur at the leading edge of an extinction event.

And Pottery Barn is not the first to go. Anthropologie, Restoration Hardware, Lululemon, J. Crew and North Face have all disappeared from Grand, as have smaller but beloved stores like Bibelot and Creative Kidstuff. It's enough to drive neighboring shopkeepers to drink — but now Salut Bar Americain is on the way out, too.

The sight of empty storefronts can be unsettling. One retailer with long experience in the area pointed out, however, that he could remember hand wringing of a different sort. At one time, he said, members of the business community worried that the arrival of a Pottery Barn would ruin the character of their beloved shopping district.

"We don't want to be a mall," they complained. That bit of historical perspective is valuable at a moment like this. As reported by the Star Tribune over the holidays, Grand Avenue has undergone profound changes in the course of its history. Its mix of businesses at one time leaned toward auto dealerships and mechanics.

The stretch of Grand between Cretin Avenue and Dale Street offers access to two college campuses, proximity to the prestigious Summit Avenue and a relatively low stress route into downtown St. Paul. It's a good bet that it will continue to be fertile ground for small businesses. Not that the businesses will always be the same as those that inhabit the area today.

Change is inevitable, and often beneficial. If a big furniture store like Pottery Barn finds more opportunity at Galleria or Ridgedale, fine. Perhaps its Grand Avenue space would be better used by a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods. Even with that context, it would behoove city leaders to pay close attention to what's happening on the avenue and work to ensure the long term success of commercial and residential development in the area while also understanding the needs of property owners and renters in adjacent neighborhoods.

An oft cited problem on Grand is that much of the real estate, including the Pottery Barn site, is owned by an absentee landlord — a teacher's pension fund in Ohio — that drives rents out of reach for many businesses. We'd think that empty storefronts do little to bolster the retirement funds of Ohio's teachers, and that prosperous tenants would be better for their bottom line.

Better still, though, might be a local landlord who could read the local market more effectively. Plenty of entrepreneurs have had their hopes dashed by changing fortunes in Twin Cities retail — does anyone remember The Conservatory on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, or the ambitious marketplace that was supposed to occupy Bandana Square in St.

Paul? Today's environment, transformed by Amazon.com and the digital revolution in shopping, is even tougher and more perplexing than what those disappointing ventures faced. Yet Grand Avenue remains, in the words of one local merchant, a busy street and "an enviable space." Our guess is that it will endure, buoyed by customers who value the experience of shopping in real stores, attended by actual salespeople, connecting with other members of their community..