Best of the Southern Suburbs

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Corporate Power House
Eagan may be the ultimate suburb. Once merely the “Onion Capital of the U. S.,” it’s now home to Northwest Airlines (Fortune 500’s #182), Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, and Thomson West (the world’s largest publisher of law texts), some of the Twin Cities’ most popular midscale neighborhoods, the metro’s highest job growth rate, and three coveted public school districts—#191, #196, and #197.  [top]

Caponi Art Park
It's the protean creation of octogenerian artist-about-town Anthony Caponi and has been an Eagan landmark since 1994. The sixty-acre public sculpture park offers tours, workshops, concerts, and theatrical productions throughout the summer. 1205 Diffley Rd., 651-454-9412  [top]

Best of Best
In 2003 Richfield scored the corporate campus of Best Buy (Fortune 500’s #76). In 2004, the city’s Woodlake Centre “urban village,” just off Woodlake Nature Center, earned the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials Award of Excellence for community revitalization. The eleven-acre project includes a one-acre sculpture garden plus commercial and residential buildings. City master planning encompasses citizen input and projects throughout the ‘burb, a testimony to a savvy community development department.  [top]

Best Indie Art Shop
Owner Elissa Jones chose to locate Lisan Gallery of Art and Design in West St. Paul very specifically for the neighborhood feel, foot traffic along the Smith-Annapolis corridor, the coffee shop on the corner, and the framing shops on Smith Avenue. An “advocate for area artists,” Jones is open to young and/or part-time artists with fresh ideas, and offers works by national artists too. 883 Smith Ave. S., 651-453-9200  [top]

Snow Bunny and Friends
This winter, after going to kindergarten in St. Louis Park, seven-year-old Lexi Roland loved to “bomb black diamonds” on her snowboard at Hyland Hills in Bloomington (8800 Chalet Rd., 763-694-7800). She’s been training five to seven days a week, year-round, to turn pro—she’s close to signing a contract and if she does will make history as the youngest athlete to turn pro.

Lexi does 180s on boxes or rails, but hates the bunny hill because it’s “for babies.” She tumbles for Minnesota Twisters to keep her body limber and often hikes from her home on the backside of the hill with her dad before the ski lifts fire up to board down and greet employees as they open for the day.

Hyland is also the home training ground for four-time junior Olympian free-stylist Dave Enestvedt of Burnsville and Kaylin Richardson of Edina, who competed in the Olympics in Torino and trains here with Team Gilboa Alpine Ski Team. The hill boasts more than 165,000 snowboarders and skiers in the winter, plus Bob Stavig of Bloomington and his fellow ultrarunners, who train for their rugged 100-mile marathons by running up and down the ski-jump hill.

Burnsville’s Buck Hill was the early training grounds for Torino competitor Lindsey Kildow, who was born in St. Paul. A few days before the downhill race, she injured herself during a training run. Buck Hill (15400 Buck Hill Rd., 952-435-7174 ) traces its ski days back to the 1930s and Fred Pabst, of brewing fame. He closed the hill after a snowless season, but it reopened in 1954.    —Kay Steiger  [top]

South Spa
Eagan’s Solimar Wellness Spa is to the south metro what The Marsh in Minnetonka is to the west. Solimar’s offerings include wraps, skin care, massage, makeovers, other beauty services, and programs dedicated to healthy lifestyles and health maintenance. 1121 Town Centre Dr., 651-686-6686  [top]

Best Water Parks
The new park and hotel combo in Bloomington takes water slides seriously. The ten-story-high slide at Grand Lodge’s Water Park of America (1700 American Blvd. E., 952-854-8900) is the world’s tallest indoor slide. If you want sunshine while in your swimsuit, head ten minutes south of the Mall of America to the Cascade Bay WaterPark in Eagan. 1360 Civic Center Dr., 651-675-5577  [top]

Best Markets
• Richfield Farmers’ Market (Saturdays, 7 a.m.– noon, through Oct. 28) is the metro’s third largest and makes the USDA’s list of Minnesota Grown markets for having at least 80 percent of its goods grown in Minnesota. Veterans Memorial Park Shelter, 64th St. & Portland Ave., 612-861-9396

• St. Paul Farmers’ Market has extended into Apple Valley (Saturdays, 8 a.m.–1 p.m., 7100 W 147th St., through Oct. 28), Burnsville (Saturdays, 8 a.m.–1 p.m., Diamondhead Education Ctr., 200 Burnsville Pkwy. W., through Oct. 28, and Thursdays, 12–5 p.m., Mary Mother of the Church, 3333 Cliff Rd., through Oct. 26), Lakeville (Wednesdays, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., 210 Holyoke Ave., through Oct. 25), Rosemount (Tuesdays, 2–6 p.m., 13885 S. Robert Tr., through Sept. 19), and South St. Paul (Wednesdays, 3–6:30 p.m., 600 Marie Ave., through Sept. 20). 651-227-8101   [top]

Best Lake Ville
There’s plenty to like about Lakeville—in fact it was just ranked fourth on Frommer’s Best Place to Raise Your Family list. Frommer’s cited parks and trails, we’ll add the restored old-fashioned façades, new town clock, Pioneer Park Plaza, and the Lakeville Area Arts Center. The city bought the historic All Saints Catholic Church and converted it into space for an arts studio, classrooms, and performances. The Prairie Fire Children’s Theatre will help stage Cinderella, 1950s-style, there in July and The Wizard of Oz in August. 20965 Holyoke Ave., 952-985-4640  [top]

History First
History is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the suburbs, but the Twin Cities’ origins are decidedly suburban.

Long before the Mdewakanton Dakota were shoved westward by dubious treaties, they established settlements along the Mississippi River, including the Kaposia village near what is now Concord Avenue in South St. Paul. Eighty-five-acre Kaposia Park acknowledges the Dakota’s local presence. In the nineteenth century, South St. Paul became the meatpacking center of our universe, with its enormous stockyards and giant Armour and Swift plants staffed by Poles, Croats, and other mostly Eastern European immigrants. Most livestock activity is now also history, its pervasive stench gone with the wind, and the landmark Stockyard Exchange Building has been transformed into Valentino’s (200 N. Concord Exchange), a hopping night spot.

Mendota is the site of Minnesota’s earliest permanent white settlement, originally based on the fur trade and protected by the federal garrison at Fort Snelling. The Henry Sibley House on Willow Street in Mendota, circa 1836, is billed as the state’s oldest standing residence. Nearby, St. Peter’s Catholic Church (Hwy. 13, south of the Mendota Bridge) has the distinction of being in longest continuous use in the state. Walking tours of the area are a major attraction through the fall. Dakota County Historical Society, 130 3rd Ave. N., South St. Paul, 651-552-7548 —W. S.  [top]

Best Disc Golf Courses
The premiere eighteen-hole disc golf courses in the metro are in Kaposia Park in South St. Paul and North Valley Park in Inver Grove Heights. Both have hosted statewide and national frisbee golf tournaments and are highly regarded in the discing world. Kaposia, 1028 Wilde Ave.; North Valley, E. 70th St. & Cahill Ave  [top]

Best of Moscow Market
Tucked into a tiny strip mall in Burnsville at Cliff Road and Highway 13, Moscow Market has authentic Russian deli foodstuffs, groceries, pastries, candies, imported Russian beer, newspapers, and other Russky paraphernalia. 2526 Horizon Dr., 952-808-9000  [top]

Cha-ching
The suburbs that gambling built
In the southwest area, what used to be a drive through the country is now a drive through greater suburbia. Today, more attention is paid to the megachurches and housing developments than to the gambling strip that runs along County Road 82 from Mystic Lake in Prior Lake to Canterbury Park in Shakopee, but that gambling strip takes much of the credit for the area's suburbanization.

Big crowds gather for live horse racing in the summertime at Canterbury Racetrack, large-purse poker tourneys at Canterbury Card Club, top-billed musician and comedian headliners at Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, and the metro's loosest slots at Little Six Casino.

Mystic Lake Casino Hotel is the largest employer in Scott County, and the current wave of settlers started with its casino employees who wanted to shorten their commute. Today the once-empty land between Eden Prairie and Prior Lake has filled in with subdivisions and national retail chains anchoring strip malls. And 40,000 people call Prior Lake and Shakopee home.

In the past few years, Mystic built the Meadows at Mystic Lake—its championship golf course—increased its hotel space, added more parking facilities, and, this season, it added a full-service clubhouse and driving range to the Meadows. The Meadows is only a part of the high concentration of top-notch golf courses in the area—there's also The Wilds, Legends, and Heritage Links Golf Clubs, and Cleary Lake Golf Course.

Prior Lake's "2030 Vision" includes keeping a small-town feel. Downtown was revitalized by a 2004 revamping of Main Avenue and Dakota Street, plus $2.4 million in storefront upgrades. Three large housing developments—Lakefront Plaza, Creekside Commons, and Keystone Communities—were completed in 2003. The city will partner with Scott County and Shakopee to complete major highway construction on County Road 21 from County Road 42 to Highway 169.

Other area draws include the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community–owned Dakotah! Sport and Fitness center and the home ice of Prior Lake High School's hockey team and Playworks, a public play facility for children.  —Megan Wiley  [top]

And the Creativity Award Goes To . . .
1. Yes, the rooms are kitschy, but you gotta hand it to FantaSuite Hotel in Burnsville for doing something more creative than recreating your bedroom. Of the eighty-nine hotel rooms, twenty-eight have fantasy themes, ranging from Arabian Nights, where you sleep in a seven-foot round bed in a sheik's tent, to Lover's Leap, which features a queen-sized bed and an in-room 1973 Olds Delta '88 Royale convertible. Sweet dreams. 250 River Ridge Cir. N. (35E & Hwy. 13), 952-890-9550  [top]

2. Duffy's Service Center in St. Paul Park offers ladies' day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays, when full-serve gasoline service is offered at the self-serve price. 701 Broadway Ave., 651-459-9052  [top]

Hastings Outing
History is a good reason to spend a summer afternoon in Hastings, named after Henry Hastings Sibley. The  pre-Civil War river town that once had designs on being the state capital has only in the past few years attained suburban status: “We’re a suburb,” a woman tending customers in a main street pub says. “The city has come to us.”

Suburbanization represented by Wal-Mart, Target, and dozens of other chain stores is counterbalanced by an authentic main street (officially East 2nd Street) running along a languid stretch of the Mississippi. Easily overlooked in the shadow of the Highway 61 bridge, the few blocks of old Hastings exhibits many of the city’s sixty-one buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. The crown jewel is the domed and multi-towered City Hall, erected in 1871 as the Dakota County courthouse and beautifully restored and rededicated in 1993.

Hastings’ historic glory also lies in a clutch of homes, businesses, and churches mainly scattered along Vermillion Street and 2nd Street west of the Highway 61 bridge. The homes include the venerable LeDuc Historic Estate, built for a Union general during the Civil War (it’s now open during the summer for tours, dinners, and special events), and the Italianate 1858 “Octagon House” complete with a crowning cupola. The picturesque ruins of the pre-Civil War Ramsey mill testify to the old river town’s early industry. City Hall, 101 E. 4th St.; LeDuc, 1629 Vermillion St., 651-437-7055; Octagon, 2nd St. W. at Spring St.; Ramsey mill, Old Mill Park, E. 18th St. and Old Mill Ct.  —William Swanson  [top]

Dining Bests
Best Italian
On the corner of 35E and Highway 13 in Lilydale sits the best Italian restaurant in town and the preeminent Italian market and wine shop in the five-state area. Osteria I Nonni has been wowing customers for years with Filipo Cafari’s modern spin on the classic cucina Romana. The giant-sized Buon Giorno Italia market is your one-stop shop for cheeses, salumi, salads, breads, pastries, prepared foods, and pizza and also has an Italian butcher shop on the premises and a wine shop with one of the largest collections of Italian wine in the country. 981 Sibley Memorial Hwy., 651-905-1080

Spaceship Restaurant
This contemporary American grill restaurant is housed in a sleek metallic spaceship of a building next to a strip mall in Lakeville. Don’t let the unique structure fool you; inside is a restaurant dedicated to serving recognizable and familiar fare in large portions. Copper Bleu’s bar scene is hot and heavy, the décor package is warm woods and candles, and the grilled lamb chops melt in your mouth. Save room for the banana cream. 17516 Dodd Blvd., 952-431-5050

Bloomington for the Classics
A perennial Mpls.St.Paul Magazine readers’ favorite, the original Kincaid’s in Bloomington is still the power dining spot in the south suburbs, make that the ’burbs. Classic service, steaks, and chops—and bar scene. (Normandale Lake Office Park, Normandale Lake Blvd., 952-921-2255) There’s always walleye on Rick Webb’s menus, and Ciao Bella, Webb’s longest-running TC foray, is the place to find it—and the old 494-strip vibe. (3501 Minnesota Dr., 952-841-1000) Mandarin Kitchen is one of the best Chinese restaurants in the metro. Summer’s time for lobster, and no one does it better and at a better price. 8766 Lyndale Ave. S., 952-884-5356  —A. Z.  [top]

Retail Bests
Mega Love
Ours hasn’t always been a love affair with the Mall of America. Twenty years ago when the Ghermezian brothers signed their deal with the Bloomington Port Authority, “build it, and no one will come” was the general sentiment. Well, not only have we all come—more than 425 million visitors since it opened in 1992—it’s also been a bigger draw than the Grand Canyon, Graceland, and Disney World combined. And local shoppers make up 68 percent of that number. Plus, we have MOA to thank for $1.9 billion in annual economic impact to the state. (Clap, clap, clap.)

The selection of shops runs from the unusual (Alamo Flags) to the upscale (Nordstrom) and attracts an equally diverse mix of shoppers—but there is no doubt that MOA owns the local teen shopping market. Women’s Wear Daily recently ranked the top retailers that teenagers consider the trendiest (Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom, American Eagle Outfitters, Express, Forever 21, Pacific Sunwear, Wet Seal, Charlotte Russe, New York & Co.), and MOA is home to all but one—Anthropologie.

Did You Know?
If you spent only ten minutes browsing each of the 520 stores, it would take more than eighty-six hours to shop till you dropped. Also, MOA is not heated—guests, employees, and lights keep it at seventy degrees, even in winter.

What’s next?
MOA’s phase two plans are currently on hold, but its hot new neighbor IKEA is keeping us occupied. Urban and suburban hipsters alike have helped to make our location the top performing U. S. store in new IKEA products. And Minnesota Nice is contagious. In recent customer surveys, the store was ranked the “Best Overall Shopping Experience” of all IKEA’s stores in the world! 8000 Ikea Way, 952-858-8088

A Store We Adore:
When Isabella’s Collections opened in Lakeville in 2004, it brought with it fashion hinting of Italy, France, Brazil, and Manhattan.  Gutsy owners Jean Kemmer and RoByn Wright have accomplished the near impossible: introduced  sophisticated yet affordable and wearable clothing that sets their customers apart. 17765 Juniper Path, 952-892-6765

Unexpected Treasure:
Suburban retail big boxes do some things best—and one such category is babies.  Any parent expecting a baby will appreciate the one-stop-shopping at the metro’s first Babies-R-Us in Richfield (two additional locations have since arrived in Maple Grove and Roseville.) First, everyone in the store is in the same boat. Second, it  offers the basics with a capital B. Practically every bottle, child gate, diaper pail, bib you can imagine is here.  Plus every  highchair, stroller, crib, playpen, toy, book . . . . Now if they only had a drive-through. 900 W. 78th St., 612-861-2249      

Trendsetter:
The suburbs are synonymous with large expanses of land—and that means top-notch garden centers and nurseries. Bailey Nurseries—a fourth-generation family-owned nursery in Newport—is one of the nation’s largest and most respected wholesale nurseries, with products distributed by more than 4,500 independent garden centers, landscapers, growers and re-wholesalers. Bailey has earned a reputation as a leader in the nursery industry with inventive techniques and its own brands, including the Easy Elegance Rose Collection and Endless Summer—1 million of the hydrangeas, which produce showy blooms throughout the season, have been sold since its debut in 2004.  [top]

Fun Facts
Inver Grove Heights is home to CHS, Fortune 500's #188. American Pie's Seann William Scott grew up in Cottage Grove.  Except for four churches, Sunfish Lake is zoned single-family residential, with minimum lot sizes of 2.5 acres.  Hastings claims comedian Craig Kilborn. Arctic explorer Ann Bancroft is from Mendota Heights. Until she was five, KARE-TVs Belinda Jensen lived in Apple Valley, which takes its name from the apple trees planted in the yard of every Orrin Thompson Home first built there—but it used to be an open-pit mining town named Lebabon.