Menards Looks to Build New Apple Valley Location

Tell us in the comments section: If the Apple Valley Menards builds a new location, what would you like to see take over its current building?

Apple Valley residents will be shopping at a new Menards in town if all goes according to plan.

The Apple Valley City Council earlier this month unanimously approved a change to the city's comprehensive plan that would allow to build a new building southeast of 150th Street West and Flagstaff Avenue, just down and across the street from its current location along 150th between Foliage and Flagstaff.

The city council's approval actually makes 56 acres of land into a mixed-business campus, of which Menards would occupy a 25-acre plot. The entire 56 acres would extend east to Johnny Cake Ridge Road and south to 153rd Street West, if the Metropolitan Council approves the plan.

Menards hasn't yet applied for a building permit, but if the Met Council approves the plan then company officials intend to, said city planner Tom Lovelace at the March 8 city council meeting.

Mayor Mary Hamann-Roland said at the March 8 meeting that city officials have a "wish list" of other businesses they'd like to see fill the current Menards site when it's empty.

Menards is not yet marketing the property, but is already receiving unsolicited offers for buyers, Menards real estate acquisition manager Tom O'Neal told the council on March 8.

"There’s a market," O'Neal told the council. "It’s a dynamic corridor. The property sells itself."

With the Menards construction, gravel mining and concrete production at Fischer Sand and Aggregate Co. would still continue next to the business campus, Lovelace said, but Menards would still be able to adequately serve its customers.

The proposal to build the new Menards and create the mixed-business campus went to the Apple Valley Planning Commission in December, February and March, where commissioners and city staff worked on concerns about the extension of retail business along 150th and creating jobs at a particular salary level, Lovelace said at the March 8 meeting.

They gave their approval by a 4-2 vote in March.

"We all want the mixed business campus to happen," Hamann-Roland said March 8. "That’ll be great.”

Tell us in the comments section: If the Apple Valley Menards builds a new location, what would you like to see take over its current building?