Lunds & Byerlys Downtown St. Paul

Lunds & Byerlys has made the difficult, yet necessary, decision to close its Downtown St. Paul store at 115 East 10th Street at the end of business on March 26.

It’s a decision we didn’t want to make, but one we needed to make given the significant staffing and financial challenges we’ve experienced over the past five years. From a financial perspective, the store’s operating costs continue to far outpace sales, which has made it no longer financially sustainable to remain open. Key contributing factors have included declining store visits, spurred, in part, by a significant shift to remote work for many downtown businesses and organizations, and a significant increase in store security costs to ensure a safe experience for our team members and customers.

We’re pleased with the city’s recent declining crime trends, and we know sustained public safety efforts will further strengthen the community’s vitality.

With regard to staffing, it has been difficult to retain our exceptional team members – including store leadership – given the many incidents the store team experiences at this location. The incidents have ranged from shoplifting and harassment to vandalism and arson. After an arsonist set fire to the store in 2022 that caused extensive damage, we immediately made significant and costly repairs so we could reopen as quickly as possible.

We have also implemented many operational updates in recent years in an effort to create a safe and financially sustainable store so we could continue serving the community. Those updates included everything from refining our service model to adjusting store hours to refining our overall product selection.

“We deeply admire St. Paul as evidenced by our more than four decades of serving this community, starting with our Highland Park store in 1983 and Downtown St. Paul in 2014,” said Tres Lund, president and CEO of Lunds & Byerlys. “While we had hoped for a different outcome for our downtown store, we remain optimistic the fabric of St. Paul, including its downtown community, will become even stronger with more of the workforce returning to downtown businesses and government offices along with a continued strengthening of the city’s public safety efforts and policies that are designed to attract further development to grow downtown’s population.”

We share the city’s desire to see the vitality of Downtown St. Paul return so it reaches its full potential that we were drawn to when we opened this store. With the recently completed Downtown Investment Strategy and resulting creation of the Downtown Development Corporation, the new Pedro Park opening this fall, and several office-to-housing conversions currently underway and expected to take place, we’re pleased to see some positive momentum in downtown.

We also know a grocery store is an essential component to a vibrant community, and it’s our sincere desire that a grocery store will once again occupy this space. To that end, we’re partnering with the city and our landlord to keep our store equipment and infrastructure in place with the goal of maintaining an optimal environment for a future grocery store.