Are Twin Cities area malls having yet another resurgence?

Malls are back — again.

After millions spent on renovations and a renewed push to focus more on experiential retail, Twin Cities malls finally saw a bump in traffic this summer, a big one for some of them. Five of eight metro malls tracked by analytics firm Placer.ai saw more visitors than in 2019. And the number of people visiting Mall of America last month was up over 15% year over year, according to Placer.ai.

"We are starting to see the green sprouts," said Sudip Mazumder, North America retail industry lead at digital consultancy Publicis Sapient.

The big summer doesn't mean victory yet. Foot traffic doesn't always translate into sales, and surveys are showing consumer confidence wavering before the holiday retail season. Plus, some malls are still faltering.

But the positive traffic numbers show that malls willing to take risks on a new mix of tenants and other amenities might have a chance of staying relevant in the still-changing retail landscape.

Take Eden Prairie Center. When people started to venture out again after the pandemic, a new 250,000-square-foot Scheels megastore — including an indoor synthetic ice rink, a 16,000-gallon saltwater aquarium and a 45-foot indoor Ferris wheel — was waiting for them in the old Sears space.

"Scheels has brought a positive and exciting change to the center," Nancy Litwin, the mall's senior general manager, said in an email. "This influx of visitors to Scheels has naturally led to increased cross-shopping throughout the mall."

The Eden Prairie Center, the filming backdrop to the cult classic movie "Mallrats," has seen a surge in foot traffic this year compared with 2019 — including a 30% bump in June, according to Placer.ai, which collects anonymized location data from mobile phones to provide businesses with traffic trend data.

Store owners are thankful for the Scheels' draw. And it has inspired others.

Bella Roberts took a leap of faith in late August when she opened her Reborn Salon near the closed J.C. Penney store. For a new salon, the mall provided an opportunity to reach potential customers.

"It's a huge market for us to have that walk-by traffic," Roberts said.

Now, Roberts gives out water bottles to the regular mall walkers and visits nearby senior living facilities to try to build her clientele.

"We feel really blessed to be in the mall," said Jen Roberts, Bella's mother, a cancer survivor whose recovery helped inspire the salon's opening.

Diversifying the mix to go beyond traditional mall retail also includes a virtual reality space Sandbox VR and the newly opened Maker's Den, which offers products made from 3D printers as well as classes.

Yet not every store has felt the shopper boom.

Two stores away from Scheels is the cookware store Kitchens. Manager Kenna Carlstedt said she did not feel the store had the volume of shoppers or sales this summer it has had in the past. Still, Carlstedt said it's fortunate the store hasn't closed.

"If Scheels were not here ... I don't know if we would still be here," she said.

Kitchens' dilemma speaks to a common problem with mall traffic. It's uneven; the bulk comes during nights and weekends, which can leave even the most popular centers feeling empty during weekday daytime hours. Traffic dry spells complicate staffing of stores that usually are obligated to be open during all mall hours.

Southdale Center in Edina is in the midst of big changeovers to bulk up its traffic throughout the day and night. Southdale tech-enhanced, miniature golf venue Puttshack is scheduled to debut in October next to the Kowalski's grocery store, which itself opened at the end of May.

The center, America's first enclosed mall, also has a Life Time athletic club and is undertaking a $400 million renovation to build a luxury retail wing and brighten its common areas.

Southdale has seen monthly foot traffic grow between 13% to 25% during the summer, compared with five years ago.

The Southdale Puttshack will be the chain's first location in Minnesota. Last week, technicians made sure all the holes worked as employees stocked the bars with alcohol. The mural on the rooftop patio was also just finished.

Puttshack uses balls with patented trackable technology to calculate points. The lit-up courses are made to look like popular games such as roulette and beer pong.

"It's a party," said Josh St. Pierre, Puttshack's regional director of operations, during a tour. "It's not just your standard 'let me hit it through the windmill.'"

Other Twin Cities malls have also experienced considerable traffic gains in recent months, including Rosedale Center in Roseville, Ridgedale Center in Minnetonka and the Mall of America in Bloomington.

Mall of America, the country's biggest, has had appearances from celebrities like former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan and DJ Marshmello, who hosted a pop-up performance for more than 5,000 fans.

"People may forget what they buy, but they remember how they feel — and we strive to deliver a truly unique experience," Jill Renslow, MOA's chief business development and marketing officer, said in a statement.

As mall stores have closed over the past decade, MOA has embraced a range of nontraditional tenants from laser tag to the Great Big Game Show.

"Those malls who emphasize experiential shopping, offering dining, entertainment and fun social opportunities and experiences, they have become and will continue to be more attractive to consumers," said Hye-Young Kim, a retail and consumer studies professor and director of the Center for Retail Design and Innovation at the University of Minnesota.

New ownership groups at the struggling Maplewood Mall and Burnsville Center, which continued to lose shoppers over the summer, are also trying to diversify tenants, bringing in more small businesses and experiential concepts as well as community events.

For malls to be successful, they will have to continue to invest and possibly add higher-end amenities or focus on how to make shopping more convenient or stores more curated, said Mazumder of Publicis Sapient. American malls should take cues from futuristic retail complexes in other countries like China where technology is heavily incorporated with features like interactive displays.

The Galleria in Edina also saw a dip in the summer. The mall has lost both Lululemon and Tory Burch to Southdale. A large renovation to reimagine the former space of its original anchor tenant Gabberts, which moved out a few years ago, also contributed to the summer's traffic decrease.

However, Galleria marketing director Rachel Oelke said the 50-year-old mall already is looking to its future, with new tenants such as Alo Yoga, Yeti, New Balance and crepe shop Sweet Paris.

"There are so many ways to shop now," she said as she walked the mall. "What makes in-store special is that experience."

Caleb Fravel is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Minnesota Star Tribune.