Demolishing the NE Business Center and Zayre - Columbia Heights, MN

Not too often I get to watch a multi-story building being demolished. So I was happy to see this one...

Thanks to a tip, I made the drive down to the disappearing Northeast Business Center site on September 12, 2020. It was a nice cloudy day, perfect for some outdoor Urban Decay photos!

Photo of the open and intact Northeast Business Center. According to the fine commercial real estate folks at LoopNet, it looked like this in 2016. While I'm sure I'd driven by it in the past, or was a passenger in my parents car when they drove past, it was fairly rare that Central Avenue, was used in the route. Especially since I didn't live in Minnesota from 1996-2018. Virtually none of Columbia Heights appeared on my radar before 2018. It was always a part of town that you drove through, on your way to another part of town. 

On June 30, 2018, Laura and I were driving around aimlessly on a Saturday night, and ended up driving on Central Ave, through Columbia Heights. We had just left the old Apache Plaza area, where I'd been taking photos of the abandoned WalMart and some other points of interest. Next, we were trying to find something else to do, since it was too early to go home. This was during that rough stretch where we had just moved back to Minnesota, and were living separately at our respective parents houses, before we moved into our house, in September.

A stretch of near four months, that was the longest of my life. 

It was this night these first two photos were taken, on our way back south down Central. Both are of the unnamed shopping center on the northeast corner of Central and 40th Avenue.

The 4th of July was just five days away, prompting pop-up Fireworks stands to appear in parking lots, all across the state. Which is such a waste of time and money in Minnesota. The only things you can legally have and use without a license here, are sparklers and snakes and other novelty spark shooters. 

Yippidy-do 'Murica!

Anything explosive must be smuggled in from Wisconsin, which seems to be pretty easy thing to do. Seems to be a fair amount of that in my neighborhood as well... I've never cared about fireworks. As an on-again / off-again cigarette smoker, if I'm going to set fire to something for no good reason, I'll stick with the good old Winston Light 100's BOX.

South end of that unnamed shopping center, with Northeast Business Center opposite. You can see the four level parking ramp behind the elevated plaza, which covers the Northeast Bank drive-up tellers underneath. 

I parked in the corner of this lot, probably in the same space that blue sedan is using. From there, I walked up the north side of 40th Ave, before crossing over at the ramp. The first set of photos are from the north side looking south, vantage point.

The former Northeast Business Center was built 1981, and consisted of six stories of leasable office space. Over the years it was home to a bank, law firms, schools, tech companies, physicians and likely just about anything else white collar you can come up with. The structure was shaped as one half of an hexagon, with one large flat side, angled to the northeast. The other sides circled around the elevator shaft in the middle, with versatile office space.

Behind the office building was a four level parking ramp, containing over 400 parking spaces.

Lets look at that first!

A large pile of re-bar and concrete is all that is left of the elevated plaza/drive-up banking shelter. Behind that, one side of the ramp is already gone. 

Way up to the Northeast Business Center roof, with what must have been the stairwell up front.

Assuming the holes punched into the sides are allowing light in for the demolition workers.

Big fan of the open floors with stuff hanging off them. Always a cool look.

That's a big pile of re-bar...

Googles supplied a few photos of the former Northeast Business Center, during my patented half-assed research:

This one shows the elevated plaza from the top of the ramp. Looks nice, but kind of impractical. The left side of the photo would be the entrance for the driving banking patrons.

And this one shows the intact parking ramp next to it.

Which looked like this on September 12, 2020.

Love how there's still a faded white parking stripe painted on what was the deck surface.

Shovels hard at work on removing the Business from this Center in Northeast.

Which isn't all that exciting...

So I decided to tie in a smaller story from a similar time and nearby address. A few blocks north of the Northeast Business Center, was the Central Valu Center.

As of June 30, 2018, it was occupied by (L-R) an abandoned Rainbow Foods, an abandoned Slumberland Mattress Clearance Center, Frattallone's Ace Hardware, Dollar Tree and a Meineke Car Care Center.

The Central Valu Center was built in 1961 as a Shoppers City store, which filled this entire building. At the time, there were a handful of Shoppers City stores scattered around Minneapolis and St. Paul, with an additional store in Duluth. These stores combined selling groceries with men's and women's clothing, home goods, small electronics, and all that the suburban discount shopper would ever need. They also provided in-house services, like dry cleaning, pharmacy, a barber shop and a snack bar.

Zayre was a retail superstore chain based in Massachusetts, that operated mainly on the east coast. In the 1960's, they were trying to expand further west. In December 1966, Zayre purchased the four Minnesota Shoppers City stores, for around $5 million. After the sale, these stores were all renamed to Zayre Shoppers City.

This article I found on the Googles suggests a fifth Shoppers City store opening in the fall (of 1967), I don't know what year the Coon Rapids Zayre Shoppers City opened, but 1967 sounds pretty close.

According to Googles, this is a photo of the Columbia Heights Zayre Shoppers City, shortly after the store permanently closed. I cannot verify this. Maybe the owner of that car (obstructing what would be an excellent blurry photo) knows something? 

If you're out there, let us know it's you in Columbia Heights, or you in someplace else!

Zayre Shoppers City as a chain, were not long for Minnesota. All of their stores were closed in May, 1980. Some of the stores were sold to Kmart. The Shopper's City concept proved to be more expensive than they could afford to keep up with. Zayre continued with smaller stores around the eastern half of the country. But all Zayre stores were gone by 1990, after the chain had been bought by Ames Department Stores.

Those light poles are (sadly) different than in the old abandoned Zayre photo. Not too mention just how sad this property looks. Sunk below the level of Central Avenue, looking functional but dated. 

2013(?) photo from LoopNet, showing a happier and fully leased Central Valu Center.

I really miss Rainbow Foods as a local grocery store chain.

Late 1970's photo envelope from the Coon Rapids Zayre Shoppers City, which closed in 1980. Kmart opened inside the old Zayre store in 1981, and stayed there until closing in April 1995. The Coon Rapids building had the exact same style of brickwork as the Columbia Heights Zayre. After Kmart closed, the interior was gutted and converted into a massive Life Time Fitness, which is still open today.

I have fragments of memories of the old Coon Rapids Zayre Shoppers City, but many fond memories of the Kmart that replaced it. I was working within sight of the building when Kmart closed. As well as watching the nearly year long transition to MEGA-GYM.

The old Columbia Heights Zayre did not reopen as a Kmart, since there was already one a few blocks to the north. After sitting empty for a stretch of time, the building was remodeled into the large multi-unit retail building it was when it died. 

On July 27, 2023, a friend of mine sent along some pictures he'd taken of the Central Valu Center, which was now being demolished.

Hy-Vee bought the property in 2016, with plans of building a brand new grocery store on the site. Though no work was ever started. Covid became all pandemicky and Hy-Vee dropped all plans for the site, and one that would have been fairly convenient to where we live. Without building a grocery store, Hy-Vee sold this, and several other recent land acquisitions in 2021, for a tidy profit!

Now the former Central Valu Center is soon to be a retail/residential mixed use development.

Because of course it is...

The former Zayre Central Shoppers Valu City Center's last days.

Demolition commenced in the southwest corner of the building.

Speaking of demolition... Wasn't I talking about something else?

Oh yeah, the Northeast Business Center! 

That corner sign in happier times.

National Council on Family Relations?

Sounds like that may be a pretty scary institution of hypocrisy and hidden religious motives...

Time to cross Central and walk down the block, to get to the other side of the NBC. Which starts as soon as the light changes so I can cross 40th.

Well over half of the building is gone. Including everything on the west side of the property.

Three of the sides have already been reduced to crumbled concrete spread out all over the land below.

Deactivated (hopefully) cell phone antennas are mounted to the top of the elevator and ventilation shafts. I'm not entirely sure the purpose of the squares cut out of the building facade. Dumping trash out the side of the building? Source of light after the electricity was cut? Maybe they are there to ensure anyone working inside the building can see if the shovel is about to tear a chunk of floor out from underneath them?

Better look at the last intact side.

The sidewalk branching off the sidewalk on the south side, taken from the sidewalk that wasn't fenced off.

Looks like a loading dock area on the right side of the second floor.

Yeah! I'm not gonna!

Dug up alleyway between the building and the parking ramp. The west side of the ramp is entirely gone, with work starting on chewing out the east side. 

Oh, I guess the sidewalk was closed...

I did like the black brick used along the foundation and elevated plaza.

Which complimented the ugly half-octagon above it.

Parking ramp in chunk form, next to intact parking ramp, in the midst of being chunked.

Looking in at the second level.

From the eastern edge of the property.

Uh oh!

Someone lost their Hello Kitty backpack behind the security fence!

Two shovels hard at work, chunking a parking ramp.

As I'm walking back across the south side of the Northeast Business Center, let's go back a couple of years, and check in on June 30, 2018.

Laura and I were driving north on Central, after leaving the Apache Plaza area. We passed The Heights Theater, which I had forgotten all about. I was happy to see that Wont You Be My Neighbor was currently playing. I think we've found what we're going to do over the next few hours! Too bad this photo kind of sucks.

(Note the intact and still open Northeast Business Center, behind the theater.)

Here's a better shot from the opposite angle. Taken as we looked for a place to park.

The Heights Theater was built as a vaudeville theater in 1926. It continued on throughout the years, slowly declining as time went on. By the 1990's, the city was ready to condemn the theater. It was sold in 1998 (to the people that own the Dairy Queen next door) and completely renovated and restored to as close to it's 1926 state as possible. The original theater blueprints and been found at the University of Minnesota, and were used to replicate its original look, both inside and out.

I really wanted a picture of the front of the restored theater, but that pregnant woman smoking a cigarette refused to cooperate. Guess what lady, you're famous!

And a bad parent...

Or just fat...

Photo of The Heights Theater from Cinema Treasures. A showing of that terrible Jerry Maguire movie, says this had to be late 1996. I don't know when the theater was given this terrible makeover, but it doesn't look like a Tom Cruise feature should be showing here. This looks more like one of those theaters where the floors and seat backs could be considered a biological hazard. A theater where the movies are all 25 cents per six minutes. A theater that is actually many small personal theaters. With small holes in the walls, all at waist level.

And that isn't butter topping on the popcorn...

We had just missed the 7:10 showing, so we'd go find something to do until the 9:20 show.

Since we had a bunch of time to kill, we ventured back into Fridley to grab some tacos and Chilitos from Zantigo (inside of an old Pizza Hut sit down restaurant). The Zantigo Chilitos are a Minnesota fast food legend. A big flour tortilla, smeared with chili and shredded cheese, rolled up tight, then heat pressed until slightly browned. So very good.

And now ridiculously expensive. 20 years ago, they were just over a buck apiece. Now they're almost $4. 

But they're so damn good!

The Heights Theater was absolutely beautiful inside. It did make you feel you were going back in time. 

Guessing these are reproductions of the original chandeliers? 

There's even a pianist that rises out of the floor, in front of the screen. He plays for a few minutes before the movie. This was pretty cool, I'd never been in a theater that offered a bonus pianist show!

Actually, this movie, on June 30, 2018, was the last time I saw a movie in a theater.

"Have you seen... No you haven't..."

I'd read a review of Wont You Be My Neighbor, a week or so earlier in the newspaper. Immediately I knew that I wanted to see it. The neighborhood was a big part of my earliest TV watching, and I learned a lot of life lessons as a kid from it. Even if you couldn't tell from my anti-social personality today... The story of Fred Rogers life is very interesting. Watching all of the clips and interviews with family and those who worked on his show gave a lot of details that I didn't know. Great movie, and one that I need a physical DVD of, for the collection.

And if you’re not cool with Mr. Fred Rogers, well then…

Since the new developer is going through all of this trouble to demolish a six story building that no one wants to lease, what are the motives behind the devastation?

Well, the land has been selected as the home of the new Columbia Heights City Hall!

Plus 265 apartments... New Cafe... Cranes... Retail space... Bootlist... Coffee Shop... Baaaaaaauaaaaaaaa...

Between the elevator shaft and stairwell.

Looking in at what's left of the second floor.

A little of the black brick foundation, peeking out under the Northeast Business Center pieces. 

The un-named shopping center can be seen above the cement chunks.

From the corner of Central and 40th.

Another look at the tri-sided Northeast Business Center corner sign. If you look closely (and pretended I had a better camera), you could read what were the last few businesses open, on the sign: Physicians Group LLC, CompuNET International and the Pro-Health Home Care Agency.

An extinct look inside the Northeast Business Center, at its longtime "anchor", the Northeast Bank. Guessing they were direct competition with the old local chain of Norwest Banks. Before those were absorbed by that evil beast known as Wells Fargo.

There's the old discarded Northeast Business Center sign, laying at the base of its previous post. 

Held prisoner behind chain link fencing, forced to watch his home being destroyed. 

It would be nearly two years before I found myself driving down Central Avenue in Columbia Heights again. No trace of the Northeast Business Center would be found at the corner of Central and 40th...

Nope... All that's there now is a nearly finished apartments. Done in that tired architectural trend of multi-colored right angles. With a modern twist on fake wood paneling. Look, I have no argument with replacing an outdated office building with new housing. Can't we just make it NOT look like this for a change?

This is everything built in the last 20 years.

It all looks like this...

Yup... That's what I thought I was going to see...

Rest easy sign. I'm not interested in committing and crimes against this facility.

Only documentation of something else that is no longer here.

Even if no one was going to use it, it had more character than this...

Oh well. Not like I drive through Columbia Heights all that often anyways.