Demolishing Moon Plaza - Fridley, MN

"Sometimes the story is the fact there is no story."

You're right!

So here is the story of Moon Plaza. 

An aged shopping center, that had virtually nothing of interest to the general public. For decades! According to the City of Fridley's website, Moon Plaza was built between 1963 and 1965. With only the most minimal of updating, over the half-century plus that passed since then. 

Other than a one time visit in late 1988, to a baseball card store that briefly opened up on the north end of the Moon, I never patronized Moon Plaza. It was nothing more than that run-down shopping center, at University and 62nd. The one that looked more and more sad each time I drove by it. Usually ignoring it completely, because it was set back so far away from the main road, that you could barely read the signs for whatever stores happened to be open that month.

M-O-O-N... That spells great bargains from local merchants at Moon Plaza!

November 3, 2017

Moon Plaza from southbound University...

August 27, 2022

Moon Plaza from northbound University...

From my pictures, dated between 2017 and 2022, the following businesses were noted by Moon Plaza signage (with a couple more added from Googles photos):

Peaceful Adult Day Center, Plaza Cleaners, Discovery Aquatics, Buzz's Barber Shop, Bosnian Supermarket European Foods, Glamour Nails, Voice of Truth Ministries, U.S. Air Force Recruiting, Model's Alterations, Samjok-o Legacy Martial Arts Center, ProDrivers, Exclusively Weddings, Abbco & Abbott Farmers Insurance, Northside Grocery and Deli, United Employment Inc., Daily Massage, Lowry Central, WIS International, Arise & Shine Fellowship God's Kingdom Ministries.

Yup… The dirtest of dirt malls.

Well, that means I better get plan a mission to launch myself to the Moon (Plaza), I don't want a repeat of a few years ago, when I completely missed the closure and removal of Moon Plaza's brother in Fridley commerce, Holly Center.

November 3, 2017.

Holly Center, at the corner of University and Mississippi.

I have memories dating back to the early 1980's, when Snyder Drug anchored the east end of the shopping center. They had a Pac Man mini-cabinet in the store that I played a couple of times. But the center of the mall was the home of an Old Country Buffet. Where the family went to eat a few times, before a Coon Rapids Blvd. location opened up in the late 1980's. 

Once the OCB left Holly Center, the center anchor remained a buffet. 

Only now it was fully ordained, becoming...

Holy Buffet! 

That do not enter sign is just a piece of unintentional humor, not a commentary on the dining conditions at the Holy Buffet. (Although it might just be a message specifically for me?) I thought it was called the Holly Buffet for years. Which made sense, given the address. Then I found out it was indeed HOLY Buffet. Which brings to mind a lot of questions. The least of which being how much do you need to pray to escape the internal damage the food is about to inflict on you?

How about if you tip generously enough, does Jesus himself come out to bless your creamed corn casserole?

How safe is the little boys room?

February 27, 2021.

I'd been thinking that I needed to stop by Holly Center and take pictures of it before it was gone.

I never did, and today it's gone. 

Damat...

August 27, 2022.

18 months later, Holly Center now looked like a big ol' pile of brand new apartments. 

I've regretted missing photos of Holly Center, and I had some actual memories of that place. When the namer of the blog reminded me of the smaller and similar shopping center, just a few blocks south, closing and being stricken from the land. I needed to get photos of Moon Plaza.

Just to ensure that doesn't happen again...

******

September 23, 2023

I woke up very early (9am!!!) this Saturday morning to hit my photo targets, then go to Targets, and do various other needed things, before Laura's nephew's birfday party. My planned mission to the Moon (Plaza) included several other photo stops I wanted to make.

 

First up, the recently closed Coon Rapids Dollar Tree store, carved out of the south end of the old Zayre Shopper's City / Kmart building. Dollar Tree was bogged down by poor location, rampant shoplifting and the fact that no one knew they were there.

I don't know when this store opened, but I stopped here once to buy something. Way back in January 2005, on my way to Doktor John's rented townhouse ("where every night is someone's 21st birfday”) for an evening where his roommates wouldn't be around. I needed some audio cassettes for the Dictaphone, as we were planning on drinking a bunch of coffee and recording that night. By 2005, audio cassettes weren't the easiest thing to find in retail stores. But I heard this Dollar Tree had them for $1 each.

They did and they were purely cheap crap. Large sections of tape did not record any sound, or what you could pick up was seriously muffled. I lost well over 2 and a half hours of material, from the over five hours we recorded that night.

Before leaving the former Village 10 Shopping Center, a quick look at the bricked over entrance to the old Red Owl grocery store. Which briefly ran out of this part of (then) Kmart, around 1985. 

Almost positive this sign also dates back to the Kmart era, which ended here in 1995.  

That much needed new car wash is starting to take shape, thank God! Because with a car wash at the end of the block, and another just across the highway, I don't know how much longer this town can hang on with this severe lack of car washes....

Khan's Mongolian BBQ sat at this intersection for many years. It was built in 1985, as a Bonanza restaurant. Then a notable stretch as Northwoods Steak Buffet, before the Mongolians took over, just after the turn of the century. After sitting empty for a few years, the building was demolished in November of 2022. Don’t worry, I got photos…

I will get around to writing about that, one of these days...

This run down abandoned house on Coon Rapids Blvd, and close to Flintwood Street, has been on my photo needs list for a long time. I was planning on parking on Flintwood (pay my respects) then walk around the block to get a few pics from the sidewalk.

But it's gone. 

This cropped drive by shot, from July of this year, will have to suffice.

No changes to the old west-of-Northtown Burger King. Luckily got my pictures of this place before it was boarded up tight. Given the amount of tagging this building gets, it would probably already look really bad if left open. 

From here, I turned off the frontage road, on to University Ave. Moon Plaza is a couple miles south of here, but first you pass its shopping center cousin...

University IV Shopping Center. Which has just as difficult of off-street access, but a much stronger main anchor, in Advanced Auto Parts. Occupancy appears close to 100%, if not all the way there.

Few blocks south of University IV, is the Fridley Perkins. With Bachman's pulling a surprise run-in. Using my blog in an attempt to rehab a public image, severely tarnished by Michelle's bat-shit insanity. We see right through you! But it is good to see the Fridley Perkins with a full parking lot at 10:30 on a Saturday morning. Especially given the franchise's recent fortunes. Of all the Perkinses that used to operate on the north side of Minneapolis, we're down to just Fridley and Blaine, in this area.

I miss seeing the buildings that were my first two legal paying jobs.

M-O-O-N... That spells demolition!

Across the north bound lanes and University Avenue’s Frontage Road, sits less than half of Moon Plaza. My hopes were enough of it would still be standing for the shopping center to still be recognizable, and the Moon Plaza sign would still be intact. Both of my wishes were granted, along with a third I hadn't considered before driving down here. 

No construction crews are working today!

Meaning I'm not going to get in anybody's way as I take whatever pictures I want!

Part of Moon Plaza's downfall was removing direct access from University Ave. In order to land on the Moon (Plaza), you had to drive past it, the turn onto a frontage road and backtrack. For me, today, it was worth it. But any other day, it wouldn't have been. Even if there was a business I wanted to patronize, just too much work to get here. 

And too many people felt the same way.

I parked behind the construction trailer, just inside the parking lot entrance. It was the most inconspicuous spot I could think of. It was in front of the south end of the shopping center. Still (mostly) intact today. But not for much longer.

Starting to walk down towards the Moon Plaza sign, I wanted to make note of that sweet vintage parking lot light. There used to be three of them in the lot, but this was the last one standing this morning.

Definitely seen better days. 

Soon, it will see its last day.

As mentioned, I'd hoped the Moon Plaza sign would be intact. And the south facing side still was. The message board underneath was gone, but the ancient US West phone sign was still there!

What year did US West stop being thing? Late 1990's?

Of course the phone itself was removed, and there was no phone book inside the phone book weatherproof clamshell cover. 

North face of the Moon Plaza sign had a rather sizable blowout. Would have thought the sign would have been made from a sort of heavy grade plastic. That looks floppy like cloth.

M-O-O-N... That spells market rate apartments!

As you'd expect, Moon Plaza is being demolished so a new 4 story apartment building can grow on the land.

Which is fine. It's definitely time for Moon Plaza to go. It looked dated over 35 years ago, and the fact that it was still hanging on in 2023, was pretty sad. It served a purpose for the locals who patronized the long running businesses established there. But its days of growth are long gone. It's never going to draw a big money tenant. And it's (obviously) never going to receive the major renovation that it needs. And that would be a waste of money. 

Moon Plaza's practical life is long since over. Pull the plug and put something more useful on the land. Like more apartment buildings! Which have been steadily replacing all of the outdated retail and light industrial, up and down University Avenue, for the last 30 years. 

The north end of Moon Plaza is already gone.

With demolition work progressing towards the south end. 

Until the point where I walked onto the property, I had no idea there was a basement underneath Moon Plaza. 

Typically, with a building this size, the whole building comes down before most of the debris is hauled off site. So here you have a mostly cleared basement, a big pile of rubble, with a decent chunk of nearly untouched shopping just beyond it.

The stairs to Valhalla!

(Combat Sports)

Previously covered by a brick entranceway, extended on the north side of the shopping center. Valhalla (Combat Sports) was contained to the Moon Plaza basement. 

I'm assuming the mural and inspirational quote painted on the wall was a part of that.

Directly across the vast basement chasm, is a closet/storage area, jammed so full of crap they didn't bother emptying it out before tearing everything around it away. You've got some fluorescent light tubes, a large file cabinet, some additional cabinets and a vacuum cleaner. 

If you wanted to put all of this back together, you could build your very own Moon Plaza! 

Or at least a small section of it.

The sidewalk that once fronted the Moon Plaza shops has been cracked and shattered under the weight of the equipment used to tear down those shops. The north end of the basement foundation has been yanked out to allow for a dirt ramp leading out. Likely to truck away pieces of the Moon, as they're scraped up from the floor. Guessing that all of the Bleu Cheese has already been mined.

Looks like class has been cancelled this week...

The wall that has not yet fallen, has a large mirror fastened to it. Not sure which former business would have used this. I'm assuming it wasn't the Vape shop. Also surprising that none of the glass has cracked. The wall has relatively little damage considering the roof above it has been cut away. But you'd think the vibration from that process would have been enough to give at least one pane those classic spiderweb patterned cracking. 

That basement has a whole lot of fake wood paneling.

Just like every basement from the 1960's did.

Cross section of partially removed canopy, covering the sidewalk in front of the store entrances. I've got zero evidence to support my theory, but I believe this canopy to not be circa 1965. Likely a later addition to upgrade Moon Plaza's curbside appeal. However, I've not seen a picture of Moon Plaza without it, so I may have just made up a theory that is incorrect.

I was really happy to have a nice cloudy day for these pictures, although the sun did show up occasionally throughout my picture taking. This shot for example... That pinkish red lens flare showed up right across that illusion of a support pole. A pretty weak looking pillar wrapped in cinderblocks...

Loved the holes in the glass.

These pictures don't do all of the broken glass windows and door, along this sidewalk proper justice.

Hard to tell which windows were broken by changing pressure points brought on by construction equipment, and which were done via senseless vandalism. Some of these look like feet kicked through. But I'm betting these two front doors were shattered by physics and not boots. That bent door frame on the left is rather telling.

I did briefly step through the frame and over the glass laying on the floor. There wasn't much of interest going on inside. The file cabinets were all empty. I'm not positive, but I think this may have been the the US Air Force Recruiting Store. 

Where you buy all of your US Air Force Recruits!

Debated going down these stairs to access the lower level, but chickened out. It was very dark as you went downstairs. With the electricity to the building already having been cut, it's not like I could flip a switch once I got to the bottom. 

Funny, I had no fear of getting caught inside the building. Just a fear of the dark, and what might happen in an area that I couldn't see. 

So I went back out and moved on down the line...

Oddly cut away shards of glass block the entrance of Model's Alterations.

Inside Model's Alterations.

Large pile of Moon Plaza was spread out in front of this section of the shopping center. I had to carefully walk over the destruction. Crossing fingers that a moment of klutziness didn't cause me to trip and fall face first into broken glass. I'll laugh at people doing that on AEW, but if it happened to me, here and now, it certainly wouldn't be very funny.

Even if it was hardcore...

Standing away from the scrap, looking down towards the south end of Moon Plaza.

Former front window for Abbco & Abbot Insurance. An earlier 2023 photo from the Googlesmobile, showed this window with lettering that read: "Walk-Ins Welcome". Those letters were scraped off the glass and replaced with this orange sign. Including the phrase: "Building to be demolished", tickled me.

Inside Northside Grocery and Deli.

Sign attached to Northside's west wide window frame.

Part of the sign for the US Air Force Recruiting store. Although I think the military store was further down the sidewalk, then where this sign was sitting.

Doors seem to have a tough time keeping their windows intact, on the Moon (Plaza).

M-O-O-N... That spells broken glass!

Curtains are falling off their rods inside the former Arise & Shine Fellowship God's Kingdom Ministries. Perhaps trying to stay in place while propping so many empty words, was simply too taxing for God's Kingdom’s drapes?

Looking back up the sidewalk I just walked down.

Then out into the parking lot, and down towards the access drive to the back of the building. I hadn't planned on it when I first started walking around the Moon (Plaza), but since it's so easy to get back there, I may as well continue going that way.

Walking down the hill and around the back of Moon Plaza, which is about what I expected to see. Various windows and doors, for both levels of the shopping center. I did like the old school television antenna, with the open door on the roof access shed.

With a happy little sun painted on it!

M-O-O-N... That spells entrance!

Directly inside those doors. I did remember to smile, but since there was no electricity in the building, I doubted the cameras were still running. Maybe they were, but the video storage server was probably on the north side of the shopping center. Which was no longer there.

A long hallway ran the (now shorter) length of the building. With the exception of a couple of open doors, and the demolition inspired collapsed end of this hallway, it was very dark inside the Moon Plaza basement. 

There was no light at all in several of the rooms I tried to look in at. So I was opening doors slightly, sticking my arm in and flashing a picture. Whatever I got, I got. There was no real way to line up a shot, because I had nothing to focus on. 

And good focus from my phone wasn't going to happen in this low of light, either.

Found the toilet!

Looking up the hallway. I could rely on the light coming from the demolition hole to keep from stepping on something that may have been a problem. I was wearing my heavy work boots, so I wasn't too concerned about the broken glass. But I didn't want to step on any sharp metal pieces. So I moved carefully and quickly, towards whatever was at the end of this hall.

This was one of my better dark basement room pictures.

I would have liked to explore some of these rooms within the rooms, but I didn't have enough light and battery power to do it. There was far too much debris on the floor to simply trust walk blindly through these rooms. 

But they were so intriguing!

Nearing the end of the hall. Liked that folding chair, around the junk and water puddles. 

Exit sign and zip tie. 

I've reached the functional end of the Moon Plaza basement. 

Whole lotta debris blocking my walkthrough any further.

On my left was that wood paneling room I was looking at from the upper level sidewalk, just a few minutes earlier. Back when I had no idea that I would be standing inside, just a few minutes later.

As soon as the natural light leaves the immediate view, it gets dark quickly.

From where I was standing when I took this picture, I turned and looked at the wood paneled wall behind me. 

These four embroidered peace signs were thumbtacked to the wall. This was the only artifact the former tenant left behind in the large wood paneled room. Another wall had a small "Ladies Room" sign placed on it. I ventured around the corner and saw darkness. The flash of the camera revealed a small sink...

Around a second corner, I couldn't see anything.

But the flash revealed another toilet!

I'm having so much fun!!!

One final look at the wood paneled room, before making my way to the exit. Hope I can find it, since the sign has fallen down. Remember, it was on the floor in the water in the hallway. Next to the Zip tie...

There's another exit sign on the ground outside.

Well, that's certainly confusing...

Oh look!

The name of this business was Accent Custom Embroidery, Inc.

That's not noted in the earlier list of Moon Plaza businesses, because it wasn't given a space on the marquee. Diminished to just a small flyer, not even 30 inches wide, stuck above a basement door, on the back of a shopping center that no one cares about. 

M-O-O-N... That spells missed opportunity!

Safely back outside, looking at where the demolition meets the undemolished. 

Wooden stairway to nothing.

The main level also had a hallway running across the back of the building.

Looks like it was either wider than the basement hallway, or offset from one below it. 

More foundation pictures from around the back of the building. 

Back of the closet full of stuff.

That I mentioned when I was talking about the basement, looking across from the other side. 

From the other side.

There's that cool Moon Plaza parking lot light, standing above the destruction.

A different look at the stairs to Valhalla (Combat Sports).

Walking back around to the light side of the Moon (Plaza).As I was taking this picture, I kept seeing my reflection in those mirrors attached to the wall, across the garbage pile spilling out of the basement. I didn't want even a tiny representation of myself appearing inside the destruction (ironic?) so I tilted the camera down slightly, making my reflection disappear.

And that’s a wrap on Moon Plaza.

A sad and tired shopping center, whose time had come and quickly gone. Unfortunately, 40 years after that, it was still here. Nearly everybody will cheer seeing what was generously labelled an obsolete eyesore, being scraped from the earth. But I’d going to miss seeing this run down, borderline pathetic, shopping center when I take University Ave to wherever I would normally take University Ave. 

Probably Zantigo. Those Chili-Cheese Burritos are so damn good...

At least my last ever visit to the Moon (Plaza) was well above and beyond my wildest expectations.

M-O-O-N... That spells goodbye…