On St. Paul's University Avenue, recovery after unrest is block by block

It took all night to quiet the raging fire that rioters set at Won Kim's Sports Dome clothing store in St. Paul's Midway neighborhood. The building was lost.

"Their entire business was destroyed. It was a really traumatic experience," said Va-Megn Thoj, the executive director of the Asian Economic Development Association (AEDA). "These business owners put their whole lives into the business and to see it evaporate was really tragic."

In the year since George Floyd's death and ensuing riots, progress has hopscotched down St. Paul's hard-hit University Avenue with mixed success.

Some Midway businesses lost buildings or leases and moved. Some had ample insurance or won grants to rebuild. Still other sites belonged to big national chains with resources. Others wrestled with building permits and wonky codes. Then there are small firms, such as the Sports Dome, stuck in limbo.

"Those that faced the most damage are in different moments of recovery," said Midway Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Chad Kulas. "Some are back up and running and some are still trying to figure out what to do."

Though $2 million was raised to help vandalized Midway stores, not all are whole.

For the Kims, the Sports Dome is one of the 228 St. Paul businesses hit by rioters. It is one of an estimated dozen that remain crippled and closed without a clear recovery plan. They want to rebuild, but don't have enough insurance.

The BP gas station on Hamline Avenue and the Midway Shopping Center at Pascal are boarded and closed. The neighborhood Leeann Chin is gone for good. The Sports Dome and nearby NAPA Auto Store are nothing more than vacant grassy lots months after the city removed rubble.

Such scenes contrast with Midway's once-battered Target Store, Cub Foods, T.J. Maxx, Dollar Tree, Auto Zone and Discount Tires Co. The well-insured stores replaced smashed windows, busted dock doors plus millions in looted inventory to reopen just weeks after mayhem struck.

Blocks east, Goodwill's thrift store reopened in August, after replacing its firebombed windows and two floors of sprinkler-damaged goods. At least the $3.6 million building was spared.

The $1 million AutoZone store at 1075 University and the $800,000 Enterprise Rent A Car building at 1161 University were so badly burned, they were bulldozed and rebuilt. They reopened in January and March.

A fire also claimed the auto parts store that NAPA rented for 20 years at 1271 University Av. The landlord won't rebuild, so NAPA is pivoting customers and employees to its closest store, 5 miles away on Kasota Avenue. Sales there swelled since area competitors were also hard hit by vandals. Even so, district manager Dan Johnson wants to return to Midway.

"We have all the intentions to go back into that market," he said. "It is just trying to find that right location."

The O'Reilly Auto Parts on Lexington is still shuttered after thieves and arsonists decimated what was once a regional hub. The attached warehouse operation relocated to an industrial park a few miles west on Prior Avenue.

The store is "going to reopen. But at what point? We have no clue," said O'Reilly territory sales manager Lenny Hamel, the site's former store manager. "It took forever to get the permits through the city. And then just a [few] week[s] ago or so, it got vandalized again."

Nearly a mile west, the burned Midway Shopping Center and adjacent Big Top Liquors store both stand but will be demolished to make way for a new upscale development, according to a master plan filed with the city. After rioters ignited the mall's Foot Locker and GameStop stores last year, the New York-based landlord pulled the leases for all 16 tenants, sending them scrambling for new space.

Big Top Liquors' owner, Applebaum Cos., recently petitioned the city for an off-sale liquor license and hired a broker. Co-owner Nancy Rosenberg declined to comment. "Plans going forward have not yet been finalized," she said in an e-mail. The strip mall tenants, Office Max, Sally's Beauty Supply, Family Dollar, Foot Locker and GameStop, have yet to reopen nearby.

The Golden Gate Cafe permanently closed. Le Nails landed new space inside the Walmart store in West St. Paul in February. One of the success stories is Thien's Cajun Boiling Seafood, which reopened as King Cajun in a former bike shop at 712 University Av. Owner Thien Do said insurance covered more than $100,000 in smoke and water damage at the old place. AEDA and the We Love Midway fund provided $40,000 in moving and build-out costs.

"People really come back to support us, so we did well," Do said, rushing to serve customers during the dinner hour.

His nine employees are happy to be off unemployment and back at work.

Manager Jenny Thao said, "This store is not just a business. It's a home for most of us."

Dee DePass • 612-673-7725