Plymouth Lands Coborn’s Grocery Store at Prudential Site
In Plymouth, a transformation is underway.
The 80-acre site along Bass Lake Road and I-494 that once housed the sprawling Prudential campus is, slowly but surely, being developed into a mixture of housing and retail.
“For about 40 years, I’ve lived about a mile and a half from that development we’re talking about,” said University of Minnesota marketing professor George John.
John says this area is in need of a grocery store.
“We’re sort of a dougnut hole,” he said. “We don’t have one right here. So when they started demolishing the Prudential building, everybody is interested in knowing what was gonna come in there.”
John and other people in the area got their answer this week.
St. Cloud-based grocer Coborn’s announced plans to build a grocery and liquor store at the site, what the city calls “The Boulevard“
According to a news release from Coborn’s, the Plymouth store will serve as a new prototype “that aims to bring a fresh approach to grocery shopping, with a focus on a wide assortment of fresh produce, locally grown and made products, and meal solutions for any time of the day.”
“We are excited to enter the Plymouth market and bring a totally new, unique and elevated offering to this bustling and rapidly growing community,” David Best, president and chief operating officer of Coborn’s, Inc. said in the news release. “Our new store will be a modern, convenient, and welcoming space that truly reflects the needs and desires of the community we will serve. We look forward to being a part of this exciting development and serving the Plymouth area.”
A rendering of what “The Boulevard” in Plymouth will look like once construction is complete.
John says Coborn will have to work to create an identity.
“This is going to be interesting to see Coborn’s coming into that box because it’s not clear to me Coborn’s has an established identity in the Twin Cities,” John said.
When Hy-Vee entered the Twin Cities market in 2015, John said they were an established brand in Iowa. That familiarity generated a lot of excitement.
“Coborn’s doesn’t quite have that pre-existing image,” John said. “I’m not saying it’s bad, but they’ll have to work.”
Coborn’s does, however, have 27 stores throughout Minnesota. The closest ones to Plymouth are in Ramsey and Delano. John predicts that if the Plymouth site does well, we’ll see more pop up in the metro.
“I mean it’s such a big, untapped area for them,” John said of Coborn’s establishing itself in the metro. “Now whether it’s smart or not, I’m not smart enough to tell. Time will tell, because contrary to what people may think, given all the high prices we face today, grocery retailing is a brutally competitive, almost unprofitable business.”
It’s a business that could open by the fall of 2025.
Plymouth city officials said they haven’t received the formal site plan application from Coborn’s yet. Once they do, they’ll determine whether the plan has to go to the city council and the planning commission for approval.
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