Twin Cities area's first pan-Asian mall will open this year in Eden Prairie

Whenever Marshall Nguyen's family got together, they'd dash to grocery stores across Minneapolis, St. Paul, Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center to buy Asian food for their feasts.

Not having a centralized location for Asian groceries inspired Nguyen and a team of developers to open Eden Prairie's Asia Mall — the first pan-Asian mall in the Twin Cities area.

"From my experience, when we have family gatherings, we gotta go to this grocery store or that grocery store, this restaurant, that restaurant to pick up things," Nguyen said. "What if we created a one-stop shop for … family gatherings and parties?"

The two-story mall is about a tenth the size of Edina's Southdale Center and the Rosedale Center in Roseville. The mall's owners aim to bring together food and drinks from several countries, including Vietnam, China and Korea.

They plan to launch the mall's two anchors during a soft opening before the end of summer and then slowly open more stores. Nguyen, the lead agent of the mall's developers, said he hopes to have the grand opening before winter.

Restaurants will serve a range of food and drinks, including pho, hot pot and bubble tea, Nguyen said.

Vendors and the mall's owners say they hope Asia Mall will provide a community space where local residents can shop and dine in one place.

The owners plan to anchor the mall with an Asian grocery store and Hot Pot City, a restaurant that serves the Chinese dish hot pot. Plans call for the grocery to include one of the largest live seafood selections in the Twin Cities.

The mall is under construction. However, workers have completed the main stairs, which are lined with traditional East Asian designs.

Nguyen said he hopes the entire mall will closely resemble architecture and art found in East Asia.

While selling buildings in the real estate sector, Nguyen realized minorities were underserved in the commercial real estate world.

Nguyen, who lives in Prior Lake, immigrated to the U.S from Vietnam when he was 5. He said he wanted to be part of the team developing Asia Mall as an investment in Asian communities.

After graduating from the University of Minnesota, he opened a nail salon before entering real estate.

"Becoming successful is not about you — it's about serving the people," Nguyen said. "My mindset is serving people first … and then whatever I get after that is a bonus."

The mall's developers also want it to serve as a place where non-Asians can learn about East and Southeast Asian culture, and they plan to feature different Asian new year themes.

"It's open for everybody," Nguyen said.

Michael Bui is opening at the mall a branch of his Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Mai, where he hopes customers will experience traditional Vietnamese food.

"There's a lack of traditional Vietnamese food in Eden Prairie," Bui said. "Most Vietnamese restaurants, they Americanized it … but for our concepts, we're going back old school. It's really traditional food that you'd get back in Vietnam."

Bui was 6 when he came to the U.S., and he said language and cultural barriers made growing up in the 1980s in Minnesota "a challenge."

"My mom, that's all she knew was how to cook," Bui said. "So she worked at restaurants and eventually started her own. Only problem was she knew how to cook but she didn't know how to run her own business."

After earning degrees in business, finance and law, Bui decided to help his mother. He opened Pho Mai using mostly her recipes.

The mall is about 10 miles west of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America, a location developers chose in hopes of attracting business from out-of-state visitors.

But they also chose Eden Prairie to make sure Asia Mall didn't take customers away from long-established Asian business corridors elsewhere in the Twin Cities.

In Minneapolis, a stretch of Nicollet Avenue south of downtown is nicknamed "Eat Street" for its collection of restaurants. University Avenue in St. Paul is known for its rich collection of pan-Asian and African restaurants, while the city's Hmongtown Marketplace and Hmong Village offer several food stalls and shops.

The local demand for Asian food also draws restaurants to Eden Prairie.

Chang Yoo chose to open a branch of his Korean hotdog restaurant, CrunCheese, in Asia Mall because of the city's large Asian population but lack of Asian restaurants and markets.

Besides restaurants, the mall's developers plan other services, too.

"The goal is to create a one-stop shop so people spend time here," Nguyen said.

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota's immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for its free newsletter to receive stories in your inbox.