Kiger's Notebook

Holiday to close the "runt" of SA C-store litter

It looks like the addition of Holiday gas stations to Rochester will mean the subtraction of a current station from the market.

The buzz going around South Broadway is that when Holiday takes ownership of the six SuperAmerica stations in Rochester on May 1, one of them will go dark.

Officials with Bloomington-based Holiday have not responded to inquiries about changes in the Med City. However, there is evidence to support this closing theory. Rochester building permits show that Holiday signs are going up at all of the Super America stations, except the one on South Broadway.

People in the neighborhood around the station say they are hearing the store is closing because it's the smallest in the batch. The 18-year-old Broadway station is 1,900 square feet. By comparison, SA's station on Second Street Southwest is about 1,500 square feet larger.

Of course, having a Kwik Trip station right next to the South Broadway SA probably didn't help its perceived viability.

If that station does go dark, it will be interesting to see what happens next. Holiday does have a history of selling its "surplus real estate," so there's a good chance that lot will go on the market.

For obvious reasons (see previous sentence about Kwik Trip), it will probably not become another gas station.

So what could go there? 

I'd say a coffee shop, small diner or even a fast food place (Dare I say… White Castle?) could be reasonable options for that high traffic area along South Broadway.

Even a bar might work there. Remember, Beer Bellyz is a converted Holiday gas station.

Paint business to build new store, add more color to S. Broadway

It looks like more color is in the pipeline for Rochester's South Broadway.

A Rochester paint business looking for a home has decided to build a new store.

Sherwin-Williams plans to build a 4,000-square-foot paint store on a spot in the parking lot in front of the south ShopKo and Menards stores, just south of Culvers.

The hope is to get it built and open by October, says Nate Reit, manager of the south Rochester Sherwin-Williams store located in the former Rochester Market Square building. That former "home building mall" used to house a number of similar construction business tenants. However, that focus faded when the economy crashed and the building industry was gutted.

The 56,000-square-foot complex was purchased by the Rochester School District for $2.1 million last fall. It is being remodeled to house area learning programs.

With the building being "schooled," the one remaining tenant, Sherwin-Williams, needs to move out.

That's where the new store comes in. Reit says building will allow Sherwin-Williams to have "total control" of its future in south Rochester.

"I think our retail business will really thrive there, particularly being near Menards," he says. "We haven't been that accessible for the past six and half years we have been here (in Rochester Market Square)."

However, Sherwin-Williams does have a strong relationship with many of the area's contractors, and he believes that will continue in the new spot.

Right now, the south store has nine on staff.

"I think we'll probably need to add people at the new location, just to keep up with the additional retail business," Reit says.

In addition to the south location, Sherwin-Williams has a store on the north side of Rochester. Both stores are corporate-owned.

New salon concept ready to launch in south Rochester

A new twist on hair salons is ready to roll into south Rochester.

Austin and Kari Lucas are setting up a Sola Salon Studios franchise in 5,200 square feet of space in Shoppes on Maine. Sola Salon is taking most of the strip of empty spots along the north side of the complex that houses MGM Liquors and the former Best Buy store.

The concept is more like a mall than a traditional beauty salon. It will be a collection of 26 private studios that will be available for lease by licensed stylists and professionals in related fields. Three sizes of models will be available.

"We're not in the salon business," explained Austin Lucas. "We're in the business of putting people into business."

Each studio is its own independent operation with its own name, retail products, prices and hours.

"They keep all of the money. They can start their own salon without any of the usual headaches of starting a business," he said. "This is several steps further than stylists renting a chair, like you see in many salons."

If everything goes as planned, construction should begin soon. The hope is to have the studios ready for tenants by early to mid-summer.

Besides a space, Sola Salon provides the hydraulic chairs, sinks and whatever other basic equipment that is needed.

Access to the studios is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That allows the tenants to be open when they want to work.

Three Sola Salon Studios are open in the Twin Cities, and two others are under construction. This will be the first one outside of the metro area.

Is Holiday taking over Roch.'s SA gas stations? Looks like it

The buzz is that the Med City will have a lot more Holidays in its future, but don't expect any changes to the calendar.

For the past few weeks, folks in the know have been saying that Bloomington, Minn.-based Holiday Station Stores plans to take over the seven SuperAmerica convenience stores in the near future, possibly by the beginning of May.

One version goes even further and says Holiday plans to build two additional new stations here to bring its total of Rochester sites to nine.

Holiday's head office as well as SA's corporate parent, Northern Tier Energy in Ridgefield, Conn., have not been helpful as I've tried to confirm or disprove this high-octane story, which is getting such good mileage at the pumps.

The only response I've received is this email from Christine Carnicelli of Northern Tier, "As a general policy we do not comment on our business operations so we would prefer not to provide any details on this matter."

Nonetheless, evidence is building that Holiday is indeed gearing up to roll into the Rochester market in a big way.

Holiday Station Stores Inc. has filed a permit with the city of Rochester to build a station on the open land at the corner of West Circle Drive Northwest and Valleyhigh Road Northwest. That would put it right next to Ford-Metro Glass and across West Circle from Mayo Clinic's Superior Drive Support Center.

With CostCo's move into the area acting as a catalyst to spur other nearby retail projects, that seems to be a pretty good spot to put a station.

A search on Holiday's website for Rochester locations comes up with the single station at the entrance to the Cub Food Plaza at U.S. 14 and 15th Avenue Southeast.

Holiday took over that station in October 2011. Before that change, Holiday had been absent from this market for five years with its last Med City station closing in January 2006. That one was later transformed into the Beer Bellyz bar, along Civic Center Drive Northwest.

While the website lists only one station, Holiday's list of job openings tells a very different story.

Holiday is taking applications for eight Rochester locations. The addresses match the city's seven SuperAmericas and the one active Holiday station.

This shift might mean a change to the calendars after all.

Mark this spring as the start of the "Great Med City Gas War" between Holiday and Rochester's reigning C-store champ, Kwik Trip.

Shoppes on Maine poised for growth as Mercedes readies for opening

While downtown and the northwest quadrant of the city have been seeing a lot of action in recent months, one shouldn't forget southwest Rochester.

The sprawling Shoppes on Maine commercial development on Rochester's South Broadway may not be exploding with growth, but it seems to be bubbling along.

It was car dealership Rochester Toyota that first put what was an empty field on the map in 2006. And now another dealership, Mercedes-Benz of Rochester, is gearing up to hit the gas again for the area that I once labeled as "Rochester 2.0." Yeah, I know… Sometimes I'm a little over dramatic. Heh.

Anyway, look for the lights to go on inside the shiny glass walls, and the doors of the dealership to open in late March.

That should bring in more traffic to that area and, in turn, attract the interest of more businesses.

Look for Cherry Berry frozen yogurt to sweeten the deal as a new franchise should start serving in the strip center in front of Lowe's. It will be next to Portrait Innovations, which is a photo studio that is going strong since opening in 2008. I recently messed up and misreported that it wasn't open. It is very open and seems pretty busy, too. I'm sorry about that.

Miracle Ear is also very active in the Minnesota Lakes Dental building. It recently moved out of the Sears store in Apache Mall to join the Shoppes on Maine mix.

Of course, there have been some places, such as the more than 30,000-square-foot Best Buy store and the nearby Mattress Firm store, that have emptied recently.

However, one of my sharp-eyed spies let me know last week that the "For Lease" sign has been taken off of the ex-Best Buy, and lights were on inside.

Does that mean a deal is starting to surge to plug in a new business there? I'm not sure, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Costco = Rainmaker for Roch. development

Bringing businesses into a new development can sometimes be a hard sell.

However, once you have a big Costco store sitting in the middle of the property, all of that changes. Businesses seek you out rather than the reverse.

"We're at the cool stage now where we can pick and choose," says Hans Zietlow, of Kwik Trip, who is in charge of the 108-acre commercial development at 19th Street Northwest and West Circle Drive.

While the deals are still in the works and he can't name names yet, Zietlow says Rochester can expect a lot of dirt to be moving this summer.

If I was a betting man, I'd say we'll have four or five construction projects going on out there," he says. "They will all be stand-alone buildings."

Any more hints?

"They all are national names … we should have some pretty cool names," Zietlow says.

I guess I'll need to keep at eye on that quadrant, when the ground thaws and construction season heats up again.

Downtown Roch. spot to get 'scrubbed'

Look for a downtown Rochester spot to get "scrubbed.

"Trademark Uniforms Inc., which has a scrubs, medical and culinary wear shop in South Dakota, is opening a store at 112 First Ave. S.W. in Rochester.

Owner Scott Mehlhaff said his primary supplier, Cherokee, had been looking for someone to fill the void left when Scrubs & Clogs by Mia & Fia closed last year.

"Our name bubbled up. Of course, we weren't going to pass up an opportunity to come to Rochester," Mehlhaff said.

He said he hopes to open the Med City version of Trademark Uniforms by mid-March. The store is moving into the space recently vacated by the About Face beauty boutique. It will be staffed by a team four when it opens.

"I really wanted to make sure that we'd be in downtown, if we're going to be in Rochester," Mehlhaff said. The First Avenue location puts his store a couple blocks from the bulk of his customer base, Mayo Clinic's downtown campus.

The deal to put Trademark there was brokered by Darci Fenske of Paramark Real Estate.

One catch to the storefront is, at 900 square feet, it is much smaller than his South Dakota store.

"We're going to have to be very selective about what lines we display," he said. "Of course, we're much different than a standard retail store, though we certainly like walk-in customers."

That means Trademark likes to work with groups and often goes to their customers to offer "fashion" shows and group fittings.

In addition to traditional medical scrubs, Trademark also sells lab coats as well as "whites" for chefs and cooks.

Mehlhaff, who has visited Rochester to bring family members to Mayo Clinic for medical tests, said he is very excited about opening a store in the Med City.

"We really love how welcoming the city is. It is great," he said. "I know it sounds corny, but coming here is so comfortable that it is kind of like coming home."

Rochester man steps up with new shoe company

Here's some from a piece I wrote about an interesting project based here in Rochester. A designer is launching his own men's shoe company from a northwest Rochester townhouse.

And he is forgoing China or any other international manufacturing. And all of the source materials - leather, shoelacers and whatnot - originate in the U.S.

One last note, his fiancee's name is Krisa Ryan. I mucked up the spelling in print. Sorry about that.

Jorge Gomez wants people to try walking in his shoes. Literally.

In a small southwest Rochester townhouse that he shares with his fiancée, Gomez's new men's shoe company — Well Bred — is taking its first steps.

And he's following a path that's rare these days. The young designer's creations are being made solely in this country, using only materials from the U.S.

"I wanted to make a product made in the U.S. that I could be proud to wear," he says.

Gomez left a career designing cars to step into the world of shoes. But why shoes?

"They are the most functional piece of clothing in a person's wardrobe," Gomez says.

When he ended up at a New York shoe design firm, Gomez worked to learn all he could about making shoes. Part of that education included traveling through China to tour factories.

What he found was not pretty. "Very unhappy" workers making one particular stitch all day long as hundreds of thousands of shoes rolled by on a conveyor belt.

"I saw horrible, dirty conditions," he says.

That's what drove him to have his shoes crafted in the U.S., despite the higher cost. Designing his contemporary menswear in his Rochester home office was the easy part. The most difficult and time-consuming part of it all has been lining up a U.S. manufacturer.

Eventually, he found a factory in California with a dedicated team of artisans. Gomez found a source for American leather in Illinois. But finding U.S.-made shoelaces was a challenge, since only two firms still make them.

Now he has actual samples of five styles of shoes, his re-interpretations of classics like oxfords, wingtip brogues and everyday boots.

Gomez says his shoes are very versatile. His hope is that men can wear them when they need to look professional as well as at more casual, off-hours times. They will cost between $395 and $475, which puts him on the mid- to high end of the price ranges for these types of shoes. However, he says his shoes will last and are designed so they can easily be re-soled.

"I was frustrated by the selection of shoes in menswear. I would spend $300 on a pair of beautiful shoes, and they would fall apart within two weeks," Gomez says.

He's traveling to New York this week to show his shoes to potential retailers. The goal is to get around 15 high-end men's boutiques to make orders from the New York show and a Las Vegas event next month.

While the focus is on getting into stores, Well Bred will eventually sell shoes directly through its website. That means he'll need stock on hand in Rochester.

"We'll use the 'little warehouse,' aka the guest bedroom," he says with a chuckle.

Gomez says he probably wouldn't have made it this far without his fiancée, Krisa Ryan. She brought him to Rochester, when she got a job at Mayo Clinic. She was the one who came up with Well Bred as a name to embody a brand that comes from good circumstances.

"I've had my doubts, but she really supported me through it all," he says.

Now everything depends on the reactions of the retail buyers.

"I put everything I've got into it. I think it is a project that I can be proud of, no matter the outcome," Gomez says while looking at one of his shoes.

DSW to step up and open Rochester store

It's a shoe-in.

A popular national retailer is following its feet to the Med City with plans to open a new store here in the fall.

Look for DSW, also known as the Designer Shoe Warehouse, to stroll into this market in the fall, possibly by September. The shoe chain, based in Columbus, Ohio, is following in the footsteps … or maybe in the wake … of Old Navy.

In November 2011, Old Navy sailed out of its 22,000-square-foot store at 50 25th St. S.E. between Bed Bath and Beyond and Michael's craft store. It moved farther south to a new spot nestled between Dick's Sporting Goods and Maurice's in the Shoppes on Maine retail cluster.

That left a big gap in the Broadway Commons shops area, and it stayed empty throughout 2012. Now, DSW has signed up to fill the "shoes" that Old Navy left behind.

"Our stores have had a huge positive reaction in Minnesota," says Christina Cheng, DSW's director of investor relations. "We are always looking for areas where we can expand our market share."

In the past few years, the retailer found a good fit with its "warehouse cool" style and its passionate approach to selling shoes. That has given DSW the traction it needed to rocket through its competitors from its 2004 spot as the No. 8 seller of adult footwear in the U.S. to No. 2 in 2011, right behind Macy's.

"We've been opening stores aggressively this year," Cheng says. "We opened 39 in 2012, and now we have 365. We're looking to open 25 to 30 more in 2013, one which will be in Rochester."

Of course, that means more retail jobs. DSW typically staffs its warehouse stores with 30 to 40 employees.

It will be interesting to see how DSW fits into the Rochester mix, which already has the big brands of Famous Footwear, Payless Shoe Source and Rogan's Shoes as well as well known local names such as O&B Shoe Stores, Danielle's Shoes and the recent addition TerraLoco.

Kismet's winter break

Look for things to be quiet this January along the 600 block of North Broadway as the crew at Penny Bracken's three Kismet consignment fashion and home decor shops take a "deserved winter break" to prepare for the new year.

Kismet fans shouldn't be worried though. The stretch of more than 10,000 square feet of quirky and cool consignment that some in Rochester call Penny Lane (Well, I do anyway. Heh) will come back to life again on Feb. 1.

Here's how Bracken describes Kismet's time off - "We may be hibernating but be assured we will be ready and raring to serve the consignment community when we start back up…"