Calhoun Square

If parking weren’t so expensive in the garage, I’d bump up my review at least one more star. I admit I’m a bit frugal when it comes to things like this, but I find it a bit ridiculous to charge a steep price for parking at an establishment that wants you to come spend money shopping and dining or to do your banking. LA Fitness does give 2 hours free parking to members using the gym. I’m not sure about other businesses.
That said, I like Calhoun Square. Pleasant place to shop and often has other vendors set up on the lower level.

I really enjoy the variety of stores in this small uptown mall. Each one has excellent customer service, and it’s a fun place to just walk around if you have an hour to kill.

Remodel to downsize. Owner after owner fails to make this a thriving place. We can’t bring back the urban growth of city malls of the 80s but we can start by not making existing malls planer and blander. People have always wanted open spaces, inviting colors and interesting floor tiles and lighting. Calhoun was more like that until about the mid-​90s. Now walking in from the Lake St. side there is a walled-​in feeling. Painted sheet rock what a nice effect to greet you to set the tone. It’s difficult to keep a mix of shops and mall owners have to do more to draw us in from the street. The Kitchen Works has the correct look and seems to do fine. There are a few events at the mall which do not draw folks as in the past. Light up the outside and redo the entrances and open the walls. Make some deals, get a mix of destination places. There are a few good places here but the dimly lit bland tone overall is a turn off. Judging by the few people roaming around I would say there is a lot of agreement.

I’ve think I’ve told this story before, but when 16-​year old me got her driver’s license, shit got real. Like every other suburban teen scooting around in dad’s Honda, I was like, «Hellooooooooo, Uptown!»
For at least a year, I could literally only find my way to Calhoun Square. NOwhere else in Minneapolis. It would be a bee-​line straight there, then walking around within a one block radius of Hennepin-​Lake… then bee-​line straight home.
Anyway, I have some fond memories of my youth here, but if I’m being truthful about its current existence, Calhoun Square has gotten a little sad. Granted, it’s less sad than Block E, but it’s sad that there even IS a mall in this neighborhood. It just doesn’t work, as evidence by the ghost town inside.
A select few businesses are wonderful (including Dogwood and Kitchen Window!), but as a whole I’m not really a fan.

Calhoun Square seems to be one of those relics from the past that just keeps trying to keep its head above the water after a ship wreck. I mean, the whole Uptown are seems to be slowly dying off, year after year, and Calhoun Square really is no exception, which is kind of sad when one considers the fact that the owners went through so much trouble to remodel the entire place to make it more visually appealing.
I think the only reason this place is still in existence is because — and correct me if I’m wrong — the restaurants that nest in the building bring in most, if not all of the revenue. True, that Kitchen Window store has been going strong for a while now, and there’s that nifty new Cooking Lesson company upstairs where suburban mothers and young housewives can drag their friends to take cooking classes while sipping on glasses of Carlo Rossi merlot, but aside from those things, it really is all up to the restaurants attached to the mall and LA fitness to keep the place alive.
I say this mainly because you never see people in the little boutiques that sit in the inside of the mall. I don’t know if this is because most people don’t really think to wander further inside the mall, or if it’s because the mall really is just a place for restaurants to take root and the owners of the boutiques continually cycle in and out when business runs dry. It’s kind of depressing, really, and I wish I had more good things to say about the place, but it just feels kind of old and tired, like the 60-​something who goes in for a facelift but still feels kind of sad and hollow on the inside when the procedure is done.