St. Louis Park’s Shoppes at Knollwood, which is for sale, could lose its Kohl’s

The Shoppes at Knollwood, a 60-year-old major outdoor retail center in St. Louis Park, is for sale, and its listing contained a surprise: It may be losing its Kohl’s.

The Kohl’s currently occupies 48,000 square feet of space. But the listing by commercial brokerage CBRE shows that space vacant.

Christian Williams, a CBRE executive vice president based in Chicago, said the department store’s lease on the property is ending next year, and the department-store chain has not at this time renewed the lease.

“Because they don’t have a contractual right for the space after the lease matures, it could be re-tenanted by others, or Kohl’s could negotiate to stay,” Williams said.

A Kohl’s spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s Knollwood plans.

In January, the Menomonee Falls, Wis.,-based Kohl’s announced it would close 27 “underperforming stores” of its 1,150 locations. None of the targeted stores were in Minnesota.

Other big-box retailers have expressed interest in the Kohl’s location, Williams said, declining to name the companies.

”It’s a number of big-box users that are not currently in that area," he said.

Knollwood is along Hwy. 7 and has about 40 large retailers, including Cub Foods, T.J. Maxx, Old Navy, Nordstrom Rack and J. Crew Factory. The nearly 452,000-square-foot property has a 99.5% occupancy rate, according to CBRE’s listing.

Heitman, a Chicago-based investment manager, bought Knollwood in 2015 (then under the name Heitman Capital Management) for about $107 million. Hennepin County assessed Knollwood’s 2024 value at about $53 million.

Williams said the sale price would likely be “somewhere in between.”

The potential Kohl’s closure is not what motivated the Knollwood sale, Williams said. Instead, it’s being sold because of a change in a broader real-estate investment strategy for a municipal employees’ pension fund that Heitman manages.

Knollwood’s previous owner, New York-based Rouse Properties, spent $32 million in 2014 turning the center from an enclosed mall into a “power center,” a term for large outdoor shopping centers that mix big boxes with smaller retailers and restaurants, all with shared parking.

The center sits on about 40 acres, the listing said.

Karen Barton, St. Louis Park’s community development director, said she’s confident that Knollwood would continue to perform well, with or without Kohl’s.

“Knollwood is a hugely successful shopping center in St. Louis Park and it draws from a wide market area,” Barton said. “Even if Kohl’s is deciding to shutter that store and move out ... I have no doubt that there will be a lineup of interested parties moving into that space.”

Knollwood has a history of repositioning itself to the times, she said.

The center was built in 1955. One of the earliest Target stores opened in 1962 about one-third of a mile to the west. Their parking lots are connected.

“Knollwood has got a lot of history and a lot of people have great memories,” Barton said.