Apache Plaza Shopping Center opened amid great fanfare on October 19,1961 in the tiny Minneapolis suburb of Saint Anthony Village. It was the second modern enclosed shopping center to be built in Minnesota. But a long string of bad luck would precipitate an economic slide that today has reached a critical point. Soon after Apache opened several other malls were built nearby, drawing shoppers and retail tenants away. In 1972, the massive Rosedale Shopping Center complex opened just a few miles away.

Serious talk of closing Apache goes back to at least 1979. In the early 1980s, Apache's owners invested in an extensive updating project of Apache's exterior. In April of 1984, with the remodeling work near completion, a tornado ripped into the mall. The building sustained millions of dollars in damage, including the destruction of the multicolored clerestory windows ringing the central garden court.

Rumors of razing the mall again surfaced in the wake of this event. But repairs were made and Apache eventually reopened. However, merchants began abandoning Apache in droves. Today this mall that once housed 66 stores is over 95 percent vacant. In the early 1990s, a third of the mall was demolished to make way for a new grocery store.

One of the main points of architectural interest is the hyperbolic paraboloid concrete shell roof of the central garden court. The roof is made up of ten inverted umbrella hypars, each one 65 feet by 71 feet and a mere 3 inches thick. Apache Plaza was designed by architect Willard Torsen. The general contractor was Bor-Son Construction of Bloomington, Minnesota.

Recently the city council, in a very close vote, defeated a plan that would have preserved the structure as a warehouse. Plans now call for the site to be cleared by the end of 2003.

A New Urbanist village is scheduled to take its place, with some of the most powerful local developers already on board for the project. Funding, however, is still somewhat uncertain.Updates on the plan, known as the Northwest Quadrant Redevelopment, are posted on the city's website: http://www.ci.saint-anthony.mn.us/new/nwq2

Photographs and text submitted by member Angela DuPaul

Links:

Apache Plaza Tribute Site, designed and maintained by Jeff Anderson. Photographs and history of this unique mall property. Demolition photographs by Jeff.

The Bulldozer Bash and eventual demolition of Apache Plaza. Photographs by member Erich Young, April 2004.