SeaQuest appears to close its Rosedale Center location

SeaQuest has appeared to close its Rosedale Center location as the company continues to work through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and faces an investigation for how it treats its animals.

The apparent closure, effective Tuesday, makes Roseville the fifth SeaQuest location across the country to shut down in the past two years as the Idaho-based company faced financial pressures and calls from animal advocacy groups to cease operations.

Tuesday’s development was welcomed by Aaron Zellhoefer, Minnesota state director of Humane World for Animals, formerly known as the Humane Society of the United States.

“I’m not surprised this day has come,” Zellhoefer said in a phone interview. “People decided not to give their money to these places.”

Information about SeaQuest Roseville by Tuesday afternoon had been removed from the company’s website and calls to the aquarium weren’t able to go through. Google Maps lists the location as permanently closed.

The beleaguered chain of indoor aquariums and petting zoos in shopping malls filed for bankruptcy last year after Humane World for Animals released footage of an undercover investigation at other locations showing hungry animals begging for food, humans getting injured and animals dying.

The Roseville location had failed five inspections due to many of those problems, according to reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The location was under investigation in Ramsey County after the Minnesota DNR submitted a case. That case was turned over to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, which said as of Tuesday, the case was still under review.

Court filings from December showed SeaQuest owed Rosedale Center more than $500,000 in rent. Emails and calls to the mall’s landlord, Jones Lang LaSalle, seeking comment were not immediately returned.

SeaQuest had filed subsequent motions to sell its assets, including animals, to Jeff Cox and Z&A Management LLC for $80,000. Cox is part of Noveen Capital, which already owns a 4% interest in SeaQuest.

That sale was canceled, leaving the question about what happens to the animals in Roseville and at SeaQuest’s four remaining locations uncertain.

“If the sale does not occur before the middle to end of February, the welfare of the animals and business operations will be in jeopardy,” a previous filing from SeaQuest said.

SeaQuest had assets of less than $1 million and liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million, court documents filed in December showed.

PETA had opposed the sale to Cox, saying selling to an insider would only lead to more animal sickness and more violations of federal, state and local laws.

“Champagne corks are popping at PETA now that this blight on Roseville has finally stopped exploiting and endangering animals,” PETA Foundation General Counsel for Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet said in a statement.

A call was left Tuesday at SeaQuest’s corporate headquarters seeking comment.

Going forward, “the surviving animals at SeaQuest Roseville must be transferred to accredited facilities where they can finally get the care they need and deserve,“ Zellhoefer said. “Management at Rosedale Center must ensure that no other animal-abusing business takes its place.”