began. Downtown St. Paul's "Day-shall-cy's" (as I've come to call it through
its multiple name changes) is closing.
Surely, this wasn't a complete surprise to the astute observer. Beyond the
generally empty aisles, there were the only slightly subtler signals of a
cloudy future - the escalators broken a little too long; the entrance gate that
would go unfixed until a new year and budget came around; or the elevators
which occasionally took your selection of floors as but a helpful suggestion.
No, for those who knew the store well enough, it surely wasn't a complete
surprise. But it still brings sadness.
I fondly recall many a holiday season as a kid spent eating with my family in
the pink-mirrored expanse of the River Room restaurant, after a lively jaunt
through the dinosaur bones and flashing lights of the Science Museum. I recall
getting takeout from the old Marketplace deli counter, and bringing it to the
floor of our new condo to eat after we closed on our first home. I recall
pushing my son in a stroller through the store's many very open corridors. And
I know I'm not alone with memories tied up in this place.
Given my role, I feel an unspoken, very limited-time expectation that I enter
this forum for a moment and offer a bit of reflection, if it's of any benefit
to others.
The closure of Macy's brings an end to an era - the department store era -
which has been a predominant feature of downtowns since anyone living can
remember. This story of closure has been repeated over and over across the
country; we are actually late to the game. It's also true that department
stores - especially at the holidays - conjure up something special in the soul
of a downtown. This store - it's mildly unlovable exterior notwithstanding -
was no exception in its significance over the years to downtown.
All of this is, to be certain, reason for concern - concern of appropriate
scale, and of a useful orientation. Still, there is concern, but it is also
mitigated by a great many factors, and from my vantage point having lived and
worked downtown, is not determinative or predictive of a great deal of anything
about the future health and vitality of downtown St. Paul.
First, in an immediate sense, we have come to know this building's design did
the store no favors. It is a largely uninviting, monolithic, windowless
structure. And unlike its Minneapolis counterpart, which integrates directly
into the skyway system and Nicollet Mall, this store physically turned its back
on the core of downtown workers to the east. In the 1970s, downtown's
principal retail arterial was Seventh Place (nee Seventh Street). That street
was closed in the late 1970s by the Town Square development, and later Wells
Fargo Place, and in turn the street closure cut off street access to the store
from one key eastern access. The obvious alternative access (6th Street) has
long been much less than inviting in adjacent blocks. Moreover, an internal
parking ramp rises up on the eastern side of the store, making skyway
connections to the core of the skyway system somewhere between inefficient and
impossible.
We know that the $6.3 million forgivable loan made ten years ago was - at a
minimum - a stopgap effort meant to buy downtown a little more time to find a
more solid footing, before the otherwise assured end came for our department
store. The 1990s saw another department store (Carson's/Donaldson's) leave
both downtowns, and along with it the mall-like retail model - a model that in
our downtown helped support "Day-shall-cy's" as a worthwhile regional
destination. In the 1990s, news accounts suggest that downtown boosters seem
to have seriously contemplated several approaches to stem the tide, but
large-scale interventions evidently seemed fraught with both great expense and
great risk. Many had hoped against hope that something could have taken shape
to complement and support Macy's through the last decade, but the long-lagging
economy seems likely to have provided few opportunities for even a modest
proposal to seem realistic.
We know St. Paul is one of the last downtowns of our scale and composition to
even have a department store. Much as I wish it weren't true, the nature of
retailing has changed in the last half-century, and the changes have shifted
emphasis away from downtowns, and department stores. Ironically it was Victor
Gruen and Dayton's - the very partnership who designed and built this store -
who at about the same time also brought us Southdale, which provided a model
that radically changed the role of downtowns vis-a-vis the retail industry.
The department store industry in general has seen many consolidations and
closings as it competes in a very changed marketplace.
We also know key sectors in downtown St. Paul are somewhere between stable and
growing rapidly. Roughly 50,000 people work downtown. The office market has
held its own through some tough times over the last decade, though has rarely
been especially tight. Downtown has seen dramatic growth in its residential
sector over the last ten years, from (very roughly) 6,000 to 10,000 residents
in and around downtown; that 10,000 number is an important benchmark in
defining the needed marketplace to attract new amenities. And in recent years,
the entertainment sector particularly has flourished, most especially in
Lowertown. Downtowns including ours are growing their retail sector through
small, local and incremental additions - pieces that don't rely on one single
actor or out-of-state giant - but rather draw their strength and endurance from
strong ties to the local community. The Bulldog and Black Dog, Artist's
Mercantile and Heime's are mainstays. As we move forward, the addition of a
Lund's grocery store, opening of light rail transit, and recent expansion of
tenants such as Cray into downtown provide a solid foundation to build an even
stronger downtown.
In coming weeks, months, and years, I'm sure there will be much discussion of
what might fill this physical space, as well as the social and emotional space
that had been occupied by "Day-Shall-Cy's". I'm sure there will be many simple
predictions from a great many about the meaning of this closure - ranging from
it being "the last nail in downtown's coffin" to "not terribly significant".
Knowing downtown inside and out, such simple summary statements don't seem very
instructive to me; the reality of our downtown is frankly far more complex, and
more interesting than any of those simple predictions could ever hope to
capture.
As for what's next to fill that space, my guess is as good as yours, but what I
do know is that there will be plenty of days for that to take shape.
But what I think is perhaps most significant about this moment is that this in
many ways marks the end of the 20th century conception of downtown, and the
beginning of a new and different 21st century downtown. Downtown may not be
the retail center of the metro area in the same way, but will anchor the
region's culture and entertainment, and continue as a key employment center and
growing residential sector. All around us the last ten years, that 21st century
downtown has been taking shape. What is clear from the Music in Mears Park on
a humid Thursday in July, from the Amsterdam Bar and Hall on any Saturday
night, from McNally Smith each weekday, and Xcel Center on weeknights, from the
Farmer's Market on a Saturday morning in September, from the Winter Carnival or
Crashed Ice course in January, to the Art Crawl on a April night: this downtown
is alive in new ways. Different ways. Different than our grandparents ever
could conceive. And downtown will continue to change, grow and evolve.
I'd guess there very well may still be an important role for some major
retailers, possibly even department stores, in downtown's future. But the last
decade has helped us all better understand that the stature of our downtown no
longer so fundamentally rests on mid-century icons like department stores, but
on a much more interesting and dynamic set of people and amenities. Those
amenities aren't so simply about being consumers of goods and services, but
being people of a wide diversity of backgrounds who in a thousand small and
interrelated ways build the center of our city together into a cultural, social
and economic hub of our region that will continue to grow and change and thrive
well into the future.
I don't know what any leaders will say about this closure because I haven't
talked with them about it, so to be clear, I don't speak for them. But what I
do know having lived in downtown for a dozen years and currently working there
is that I mark this occasion with a certain sadness, along with plenty of
optimism and interest to see where this downtown - my downtown, and our
downtown - will go next.
Be well, and thanks for reading.