Remembering the Apache Plaza mall, which closed 20 years ago this month

It was 20 years ago this month that the Apache Plaza, one of Minnesota’s first indoor malls and a cultural touchstone for generations of Minnesotans, was demolished.

Cleared to make way for where Silver Lake Village now stands, Apache Plaza – and the nearby Apache 6 Theater which ceased operations shortly before – was a space of significance for commerce and lifelong memories. Two decades and an increasingly fleeting online presence later, it’s time to look back and really appreciate what Apache was.

Apache first opened in St. Anthony on October 16, 1961 as a prime slice of innovative '60s architecture thanks to a design by Willard Thorsen (who later designed the nearby Northtown and Har-Mar malls). The second enclosed mall to open in the state of Minnesota (just behind Southdale in 1956) The original stores that served as the Mall’s four pillars were JCPenney (which lasted until 1995), Montgomery Ward (until 1980), Young Quinlan (until 1972) and Woolworth’s (1993).

The larger stores changed throughout the mall’s 40 years existence, some of which migrated to the nearby Rosedale Center, with the later years probably most known for Apache’s Herberger’s location which opened in 1987 and remained operational until the mall’s 2004 closing.

Inside the mall you had a true "something for everyone" approach to shopping. While the center had both an elaborate fountain and a stage for performances, surrounded by a variety of stores that at its peak numbered around 60. Lasting through it all was the Apache Beauty Center, which was part of the Mall’s grand opening in 1961 and remained open for business until its closure.

The center area also had generous space for seasonal attractions, including generations of children’s first encounters with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny as well as the occasional special visitor making a promotional appearance, such Spider-Man. Beneath all the action was a fully functioning basement bowling alley. In a pre-Mall of America Minnesota, Apache Plaza was something of an entertainment Mecca.

The mall faced its most infamous hardship on Thursday, April 26, 1984, when a tornado touched down in what was likely the most destructive natural disasters to ever hit a Minnesota shopping center. While, in retrospect, many have considered this the beginning of the end of Apache Plaza, the mall did have community support rallying behind it when it rebuilt and reopened, keeping it around for another two decades.

The Apache 6 Theaters originally opened as the one-screen Chief Theater in 1969, but proceeded to grow over the next decade until it reach its six screen max in 1978.

A Mann Theater until purchased by the owners of the Heights Theater for its final years, it closed in 2003 but the memories remain vivid.

Local film critic Paul McGuire Grimes, of "Paul’s Trip to the Movies” and Twin Cities Live, told Bring Me The News : “On any given Friday night, my friends and I would contemplate what to do, and since many of us lived in the Fridley/Columbia Heights area, it was a no-brainer to hit up a new release at Apache 6 whether it was Mrs. Doubtfire or Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet .

"I have distinct memories of my dad taking me to see Con-Air and Batman & Robin . Some of my last remaining memories of that place included Bridget Jones’s Diary and taking my mom to see The Hours .

"It’s been over twenty years, and I can still see the box office, the concessions counter, the tiny lobby, and going up a level for the two upstairs auditoriums."

Paul supplied us with photos of ticket stubs from Apache’s final years, which with 2024 eyes seem like relics.

For millennials like Paul who grew up in the area, Apache Plaza likely offered many first experiences of the things that made childhood great. Fanny Farmer was a beautifully displayed candy store, the Nelson’s Hallmark layout made greeting cards seem like the height of elegance, the video store Video World and its colorful kids section seemed like a dream come true.

And then there was Coach’s Corner, which spent most of the '90s selling rare sports trading cards, hard-to-find toys (Star Trek’s Tapestry Picard action figure sat behind the glass for a cool $800), and later became *the* spot for in-the-know collectors of Beanie Babies. Lasting until 2004, the buzzing of collectors in-and-out of the mall helped signal signs of life in what otherwise may have seemed like a ghost town.

Those largely abandoned latter years gave the mall an infamy. In 2000, readers of City Pages voted the mall "The Best Place to Dump Someone." While the mall doors remained open for shoppers of Herberger’s and Coach’s Corner, as well as for people who wanted to walk around inside a large warm area in the winter and buy Christmas trees after shopping at Cub Foods, the mall ultimately closed 20 years ago this month.

By February the remaining stores were given notice, plans were set for a bulldozer Bash where the community could gather one last time and then in April began the demolition.

While references to it remain in classic Minnesota-based media, including a well-timed riff at the beginning of Mystery Science Theater 3000’s skewering of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians , the indoor community-centric shopping center seems like an entity unlikely to be duplicated in the near future. No tornado, bulldozer or value-fluctuation of Beanie Babies could ever destroy a memory.