Call it Little Mogadishu.
Like generations of immigrants before them, more than three dozen Somali merchants in Minneapolis have joined hands to create an ethnic retail center, with products of special appeal to their fellow arrivals — and perhaps to the general public, as well.
The Global Business Center, a bazaar-style consortium of 42 retailers in Minneapolis’ Hi-Lake Shopping Center, 2218 E. Lake St., is scheduled to celebrate its grand opening Friday. The 20,000-square-foot center offers jewelry, clothing, furniture, baked goods, home furnishings, music, videos, a barber shop — and even a small prayer room for Muslim proprietors and customers.
Abdi Mohammed is president of the business consortium — which one city official is calling “a milestone” for the city’s Somali community — as well as proprietor of the 2,000-square-foot Global Coffee shop at the facility’s front door.
Dave Brennan, co-director of the Twin Cities-based Institute For Retailing Excellence at the University of St. Thomas, predicted that the Global Business Center should prove attractive to its target audience, and he cited the same factors that made certain neighborhoods in New York City retail centers for that community’s Italian and Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century.
“Somalis … probably will be willing to go a greater distance because of the clear identity as a Somali center,” Brennan said. Like other immigrants, Somali shoppers naturally “want to support their community.”
Mark Timmers, the real estate broker who helped assemble the Global Business Center deal with St. Paul-based Wellington Management, agreed that the Global Business Center is a business enterprise “run by Somalis for Somalis.”
But Timmers also expects the Somali shops to draw from the racially and ethnically diverse East Phillips neighborhood. The location, he noted, gives the center especially good access to the light rail train line and bus routes.
Judd Fenlon, Wellington Management director of real estate development, said the Global Business Center is a good fit at the Hi-Lake Shopping Center, partly because of the revitalization efforts occurring along the Lake Street corridor. Wellington Management has helped in that effort, investing about $3.5 million in 2004 to renovate the Hi-Lake center and making more than $500,000 in tenant build-out improvements for Global Business Center, he said.
Minneapolis City Council member Gary Schiff added that the new Somali retail center will take traffic pressure off the 24th Street and Elliott Avenue area as a few businesses moved from there to Hi-Lake, which has an on-site parking lot. But the broader impact is that Global Business Center’s five-year lease with Wellington Management is a breakthrough for the Somali community, demonstrating it can do business with a major real estate developer, he said.
“This helps send a message that they (Somalis) can sign a lease and work with the business community,” said Schiff, of Minneapolis’ 9th Ward. “The message to the broader business community is that they can seek out Somali businesses for business.”
Schiff noted that immigrant communities initially meet the retail needs of their own community. But as they gain a foothold, they move up the economic ladder to serve a broader consumer audience, he said.
Brennan said the rise of the new Somali retail center “is a reflection of how our community is changing.” Various sources peg the size of the Twin Cities Somali population anywhere from 20,000 to as many as 80,000 people.
Brennan noted the Twin Cities has growing pockets of ethnic retail districts in the Twin Cities, including the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis that opened about three years ago.
Ethnic centers can house a variety of cultures or focus on a specific group, Brennan said: “They create a focal point for people to experience a larger number of cultures in a relatively small amount of space.”
Mohammed, 46, has spent two years trying to make the Global Business Center a reality. In 2007, Mohammed wanted to open a coffee shop at the Hi-Lake retail center. While the location was ideal, the vacant space available was too large for his needs, he said. At about the same time, a few other Somali proprietors were looking for a home for their businesses.
“Other Somali businesses asked me to help get this spot,” said Mohammed, who has worked for computer-related companies in hard-drive assembly since coming to Minnesota in the mid-1990s, and who previously was co-owner of the Paradise restaurant in Minneapolis.
With Timmers’ help, Mohammed and a small group of other Somali business owners began working with Wellington officials to see if the developer could devise a plan to repurpose the more than 20,000 square feet of vacant space, accommodating many retailers who had smaller space needs.
Initially, Mohammed pulled together about 40 Somali business owners to see if they wanted to be part of a large consortium. But about half of those people opted to stay in their current locations and Mohammed had to start from scratch in rebuilding his plan, Timmers said.
Mohammed and Timmers developed a plan that went beyond co-signing leases, creating a limited liability corporation that serves as the legal umbrella for the retail community.
The Global Business Center LLC has signed a five-year lease with Wellington Management and, in turn, is subleasing the individual spaces to tenants for a similar length of time, according to Wellington officials and Timmers.
That’s especially attractive to tenants such as Fadumo Farah, who was on a month-to-month lease during the eight years she ran her general merchandise Somali store from the Carmel Mall in Minneapolis. At the Global Business Center, she is taking about 600 square feet and is happy with the security of her new retail home and a long-term lease.
“I hope to get a lot of customers,” Farah said, noting that Global Business Center will have goods and services that appeal to people of all walks of life, not just Muslims.
Agreed Mohammed: “This is not just for Somalis, but everybody.”
And, indeed — many people want to join up. Even before its official opening, the Global Business Center has at least 50 more merchants on its waiting list, Timmers said.
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