Roseville's struggling Har Mar Mall once was a 'hopping place.' What happened?

Step into the Burlington store at Har Mar Mall in Roseville and see what shoplifters have wrought: As soon as you enter, a security guard stops you, points to the security camera, and then unlatches a gate that allows you to enter the store.

Theft and shoplifting exploded at the historic mall last year. Some retailers have gated shut their mall connections, forcing customers to enter from the parking lot. The mall's manager has installed more security cameras. The police make regular "proactive visits."

About half of the storefronts are empty. A Subway sandwich shop was the latest closure last month. Rumors abound that one of the mall's remaining anchors will be gone by September.

"Sadly, now I feel it's in such a state I don't feel it's ever coming back," said Kathleen Fuery, the owner of Merle Norman Cosmetic Studio at the mall and at 33 years its longest tenant.

City officials, including one who works as a real estate agent, said it's simply not known, for now, what will become of the mall.

The mall was purchased by Texas-based Fidelis Realty Partners for $50 million in 2022. The company didn't respond to requests for comment.

Pioneering start

This wasn't how it started for Har Mar, named for its developers Harold and Marie Slawik, who envisioned one of the nation's first fully enclosed malls when it opened in 1963.

The spot they picked, at Snelling Avenue N. and County Road B, is legendary for Minnesota retail. To the north sits the very first Target store. Across Snelling Avenue was one of the original locations of the Sound of Music, the store that became Best Buy.

It was a "hopping place," but no more, said Ed Leschke, a longtime mall walker who picks Har Mar over nearby Rosedale Center because he knows he won't have to contend with crowds.

Leschke said he thinks the owners are probably still making money, with anchors such as Cub Foods, Barnes & Noble and Marshall's pulling in enough customers to offset the mall's vacancies.

"These people wouldn't be here if they weren't making money," he said.

Maybe the strategy is just to wait for a developer to come along, he added: "They're waiting for that point, I believe, where somebody comes in with a big offer and they bulldoze her down. I assume this is a very lucrative piece of property."

Fidelis leasing director John Clinkscales last month told local Roseville news website the Roseville Reader that any potential redevelopment would be handled by JLL Property Management. As the Reader noted, the Har Mar spaces aren't listed on the JLL website, but a JLL sign with phone numbers is posted in the parking lot.

Roseville Mayor Dan Roe said the city hasn't heard of any plans to redevelop the area.

"We're kind of in the dark," he said.

Things turned for the worse about a dozen years ago, said Fuery, the owner of Merle Norman Cosmetic Studio. That's when the mall went through a series of owners, and somewhere along the way, the community events stopped.

There used to be antiques shows or flower shows, art fairs and school events set up on tables in the mall. The mall's causeways were filled with people checking out art or heading to nearby restaurants.

"It was more than shopping," Fuery said. All of that is gone, though she said the latest manager at the mall has tried hard to make connections with the remaining retailers.

The loss of community has hurt, and malls have suffered as people turn to online shopping, but Fuery said the mall is reeling from wave after wave of shoplifting.

 "That's 90 percent of it," she said.

Increase in shoplifting

Roseville Police Chief Erika Scheider said her department has stepped up its mall patrols. Police records show more than 1,500 proactive visits and foot patrols in the past five years.

Still, theft and shoplifting cases have jumped to record highs, from 98 cases in 2021 to 420 last year.

Neighbors have shared stories of seeing people fleeing the mall with merchandise in their hands. Shop owners have followed people carrying a suspicious amount of unbagged clothing out of the mall, making videos and recording license plates.

"The trend that we're seeing is just the really aggressive shoplifters," said Scheider.

Roseville police helped bust a nationwide shoplifting ring last year at nearby Rosedale Center, after a wave of thefts at Lululemon stores nationwide. It was one of the first cases prosecuted in Minnesota under a 2023 state law aimed at addressing organized retail theft.

But Scheider continues to hear from retailers that theft is a problem, in part because it's so easy to resell the stolen items online. The Police Department opened a new substation at Rosedale Center last fall, with two police officers on patrol there to help cut down on theft.

At Har Mar, Fuery said she's had to install a doorbell on her front door, which otherwise remains locked. Customers are buzzed in.

"Some of my older customers, their husbands are afraid for them to come to this mall anymore," she said.

Leschke, the mall walker, said he used to do his laps at the Apache Plaza mall in St. Anthony, which opened just before Har Mar did and was shuttered in 2004. The stores at Apache started leaving, and then "all of a sudden it was just one guy in there, he was running a rummage sale," he said.

The mall got knocked down shortly after that.