At Grand and Victoria, the Shops Are Turning to Face Grand Avenue

The northeast corner of Grand Avenue and Victoria Street is a construction site this fall. For about half a century, Victoria Crossing East Mall stood there. The building went up in 1915 as a car dealership and later held Odegaard Books, the Royal Garden Chinese restaurant, Trade Winds, Paper Source, the Victoria Music Cafe, Billy's on Grand, Gather and Juut Salon. Demolition there had mostly finished by early August, and the Pioneer Press reported on Aug. 7 that construction of the Grand Victoria was beginning.

An empty corner usually means a quieter holiday season. But the 2026 news at this intersection is about where the businesses that stayed chose to go. Evereve is moving across the street so its store faces Grand. Juut Salon plans to come back to Grand once the new building opens. The building going up on the empty corner was designed around Grand Avenue storefronts. This is the first holiday season where you can see the intersection turning toward the avenue.

The four corners as of early October

Only one corner is actually missing. The rest of the intersection is open, changing hands or getting ready for the holidays. That's what most of the story is about.

Why Evereve crossed the street

Evereve's St. Paul store sat in Victoria Crossing West for 19 years. It closed when the lease expired on Feb. 28. The Star Tribune reported in March that co-founder and co-CEO Mike Tamte chose not to renew because he wanted more space, not because the store was losing money. He also told the paper that if he could start over, he wouldn't pick a side street. The store faced Victoria Street South, about half a block off Grand.

About five weeks later, the Star Tribune reported that Evereve had signed a lease for the former Pottery Barn on the southwest corner. Tamte said the new store puts the company where he wants it, "on the frontage" of Grand Avenue. Evereve will use 6,000 of the space's 8,000 square feet, and as of that April report, no one had been named for the rest. Pottery Barn left in 2024, and according to the Villager, the Grand Place building has been mostly vacant since.

"We did it."

Mike Tamte, on signing the lease at 870 Grand, as quoted by the Star Tribune

In April, Tamte said he wanted the store open by Black Friday. The Villager's later report said the goal was to open before the holiday shopping season. As of early October, we haven't found any announcement that the store has opened, so treat the November timing as the company's goal. The city's Board of Zoning Appeals approved a variance on Aug. 3 that lets the new store put opaque film on some of its storefront windows. City code normally requires first-floor windows in nonresidential buildings to let people see in and out.

The empty corner is being built to face Grand, too

The Grand Victoria is a $44 million, six-story building on the site of the old East Mall and the 1891 house just east of it. The Pioneer Press says it will have nearly 90 market-rate apartments and 12,800 square feet of street-level commercial space for two restaurants and one retailer. The Villager puts the retail space at about 13,000 square feet and says the restaurants would have outdoor patios. The one tenant already named is Juut Salon, a former East Mall tenant that has said it will return once the building is finished. In the meantime, Juut moved to a temporary spot nearby.

There's a precedent a few blocks away. Peter Kenefick, an investor in the Grand Victoria, built Kenton House at Grand and St. Albans Street on the site of his Dixie's on Grand restaurant. It opened in fall 2023 with 80 apartments above Saji-Ya and Emmett's Public House, and Razava Bread Co. moved in late in 2024. Seen that way, Grand and Victoria is the second corner on this part of Grand to swap an older building for housing over restaurant storefronts. Developer Ari Parritz of Afton Park Development described the site at the groundbreaking as "an iconic corner, a grand street." The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is the lead investor.

The project got public financing after some debate. The St. Paul City Council approved a tax increment financing district that gives the development $2.95 million. The Pioneer Press reported that the Planning Commission's review of the redevelopment plan passed 6 to 5, and that Paper Source, the mall's last retail tenant, left on Jan. 15. Construction is expected to run through 2026 and 2027.

The northwest corner is the one that stayed put

Victoria Crossing West lost Evereve, but Bread & Chocolate, CorePower Yoga and Chipotle are still there. Holly Weinkauf, president of the Grand Avenue Business Association, told the Star Tribune that those tenants bring "a constant flow of people." No tenant had been announced for Evereve's old space when the research for this post was done.

Cafe Latte at 850 Grand Ave. is open every day from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Its hours page was posting daily fall desserts this week. Bread & Chocolate and Cafe Latte share an owner. In March, he told the Star Tribune that food sales at the bakery had held steady, though customer counts at the two businesses combined were down about 1,000 for the year to that point. Before demolition started, he expected the work across the street to cause about a year of disruption.

Parking this season

Parking is the most practical thing that changed at this intersection over the past year. Here's what the reporting shows:

• The church lot behind Bread & Chocolate used to offer free parking and began charging in summer 2025, according to the Star Tribune's March report.
• The ramp at 870 Grand Ave., in the same building as Evereve's new store, costs $1 an hour according to Cafe Latte's parking information. Cafe Latte also runs a customer promotion, and its site lists the terms two different ways, so check the details there before you go.
• Street parking is free per Cafe Latte's site, but business owners have described it as limited.
• The Grand Victoria will add 121 underground spaces when it opens: 22 for customers and 99 for residents.

The lane and parking restrictions in the city's current Grand Avenue reconstruction notices are for Grand and Snelling, a different intersection farther west.

December 5 is the corner's first holiday test

The Grand Avenue Business Association's Grand Meander is on Saturday, Dec. 5, 2026, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The association's listing includes sales and activities at businesses along the avenue, free trolley rides from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., holiday treats, entertainment and visits with Santa. The association was still looking for activity hosts and sponsors and hadn't yet published a list of participating businesses.

The Meander falls about a week after Black Friday, Evereve's target date. If that holds, the Meander will be the first big shopping day with Evereve open in its new Grand Avenue storefront. The Grand Victoria construction will be across the street, and Bread & Chocolate and Cafe Latte will be operating near the trolley route. The rest of the avenue's independent shops, like the children's bookshop, the cigar store and Golden Fig Fine Foods that the Pioneer Press listed among Grand's destinations, will be a short walk away.

If you're wondering what the work at Grand and Victoria means for the blocks around it, from the new storefronts to what a 2027 opening could change on your street, Natasha Cejudo is glad to talk it through over coffee at Cafe Latte. Let's connect and start the conversation.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.