Drive along the east entrance of Woodbury Lakes this fall and you will pass a run of storefronts that did not exist a year ago, several more with paper still taped over the glass, and at least one space wrapped in construction fencing announcing a burger chain that started as a hot dog cart in New York City twenty-five years ago. That fence, stretched across the old Jos. A. Bank storefront across from American Eagle, is doing more advertising than most tenants bother with before opening day. It is also a fair summary of what has been happening at this shopping center since 2024: a steady swap of familiar names for a specific kind of new one.
The Herman Miller showroom near that same east entrance opened this year, and it is worth pausing on why a furniture brand best known for the Aeron chair and George Nelson-era design chose Woodbury for its first dedicated showroom in the Twin Cities. It was not chasing walk-in apparel traffic. A company spokesperson told Woodbury News Net that the strategy behind adding stores to malls like this one is aimed squarely at people who work from home and want office-grade ergonomic furniture without a special trip. MillerKnoll, the parent company that also owns Design Within Reach, has a store in Edina, but nothing east of the river until this one. For a Woodbury resident who has been eyeing an Aeron chair from a product photo, the test-sit that used to mean a drive to Edina is now a fifteen-minute errand.
That is one signal. The rest of the tenant list tells a version of the same story from a different angle.
What has actually landed since 2024
Kimco Realty bought Woodbury Lakes in 2024, and the additions since then have followed a pattern:
- J.Crew Factory and Warby Parker, both national brands that skew toward shoppers who would otherwise drive to a regional mall
- MINISO and Paris Baguette, both fast-growing chains expanding into suburban strip centers rather than downtown corridors
- Public Lands, an outdoor retailer with a footprint built for browsing, not quick pickup
None of these are destination retailers in the way a department store anchor used to be. They are the kind of national names that show up when a property owner is trying to convince shoppers the trip is worth making even when a closer, smaller option exists.
The two still under construction, and what their size difference says
Two more tenants are confirmed for later this year, and their square footage tells you something about how differently the center is betting on each one. Anthropologie is taking 6,552 square feet, a full lifestyle format with clothing, home decor and beauty all under one roof. Rowan, an ear-piercing and hypoallergenic jewelry shop, is taking a tenth of that space at 1,100 square feet. One is a big swing at a shopper who wants to spend an afternoon. The other is a specialty errand, the kind of stop that used to mean driving to a mall with a jewelry counter and a wait list.
Shake Shack sits in between, at roughly 3,020 square feet in that fenced-off former Jos. A. Bank spot. It will be the chain's sixth Minnesota location and its first anywhere in the east metro, joining existing Shacks at Mall of America, the airport, Arbor Lakes in Maple Grove, and outside Southdale and Rosedale. Every one of those is west or south of the river. The original timeline pointed to a late spring or early summer 2026 opening. As of the most recent tenant update from Woodbury Lakes, Shake Shack is still listed alongside Anthropologie and Rowan as "coming later this year," which means the build-out ran longer than the early projection. That is a normal rhythm for retail construction, but it is also a useful marker for anyone who has been checking the fence hoping for a ribbon-cutting: the wait has already outlasted the first estimate by a full season.
What the center itself is saying
A spokesperson for Woodbury Lakes, identified in coverage as Runkel, put the strategy plainly when the Anthropologie and Rowan leases were announced:
"We're continuing to see interest from top national brands and look forward to welcoming more dynamic additions soon."
That is not a statement about foot traffic counts or a specific demographic study. It is a property owner describing a pipeline, and the pipeline so far has favored brands with a presence at Edina's Southdale, Maple Grove's Arbor Lakes, or downtown Minneapolis rather than the kind of tenant that used to fill a suburban strip center twenty years ago. The shift is less about adding stores and more about which stores are willing to bet on this specific address.
A separate opening across town
Not every change in Woodbury's retail map runs through Woodbury Lakes. Planet Fitness opened September 19 in the former Party City space elsewhere in the city, a reminder that the retail turnover happening in Woodbury this year is not confined to one shopping center. It is a different building, a different tenant category, and a different kind of errand, but it lands in the same calendar window as everything happening at the Lakes, which makes this a busier season for storefront change across Woodbury generally than any single property's leasing page would suggest on its own.
Why the mix matters more than the count
Six new tenants is not, by itself, a remarkable number for a shopping center this size. What is worth noticing is the shape of the list: a design-furniture showroom aimed at remote workers, a burger chain making its first east-metro move after a decade of choosing the western and southern suburbs first, a specialty jewelry shop, and a full-size lifestyle retailer, all landing within the same eighteen-month stretch under the same new ownership. That is not a random restocking of empty units. It reads like a property owner testing whether an East Metro address can now support the same tier of national brand that used to require picking a spot outside Minneapolis or St. Paul first.
For someone who has lived near Woodbury Lakes long enough to remember when the center's biggest draw was a coffee stop on the way to somewhere else, this is the concrete version of that shift: an ergonomic chair you can sit in without driving to Edina, a burger chain that picked this side of the river before Minnetonka's location was even open, and a construction fence that has been up longer than the original timeline promised.
If you're weighing what any of this means for property values or timing a move near Woodbury Lakes, Jessica Johnson tracks these kinds of local shifts as part of covering the Woodbury market day to day, and is a good call to make before assuming last year's read on the neighborhood still holds.
