Jul. 5--Paster Enterprises, a St. Paul-based developer and manager of neighborhood shopping centers in the Twin Cities area, last week announced several new and renewed leases at six of its 12 malls.

Anytime Fitness renewed its lease for 5,706 square feet at Mounds View Square, where occupancy is 90 percent.

Central Plaza in Hilltop renewed Skyline Wireless's lease for 1,200 square feet and Harbor Freight Tools' lease for 12,447 square feet, keeping occupancy at 57 percent.

Northway Center in Lexington renewed the lease for its grocery anchor, Festival Foods, keeping occupancy at 82 percent.

Let's Face It Cosmetics signed a new lease for 1,000 square feet at Lakeville Crossing, boosting occupancy to 82 percent.

Doddway Center in West St. Paul added a Pizza Man restaurant, increasing occupancy to 91 percent.

Crystal Shopping Center recently added a Farmers Insurance office. A Pizza Man opened in May, and a Let's Face It Cosmetics boutique will open in August, bringing occupancy to 89 percent.

Meanwhile, Paster plans to begin work this fall on a redevelopment of Mendota Plaza, its 55,000-square-foot retail center in Mendota Heights. Plans call for remodeling the existing main building, constructing a 14,820-square-foot addition that will house a Walgreens drug store and adding another 20,000 square feet for stores and restaurants. Long-term plans for the site include adding office space and senior housing.

More space downtown

Another large chunk of office space recently came onto the downtown Minneapolis office market at the Ameriprise Client Service Center, 901 3rd Av. S.

The Twin Cities office of CB Richard Ellis is listing about 259,000 square feet on four floors in the 15-story building. Earlier this year, Ameriprise announced layoffs of about 300 downtown workers, but company spokesman Paul Johnson said some of the space has been vacant since Ameriprise moved into the building about six years ago. Despite the layoffs, Ameriprise continues to be one of downtown's largest employers.

The listing comes on the heels of another large block of downtown space being put up for lease by Macy's in the Nicollet Mall building that also houses the department store. That space is on upper office floors totaling about 350,000 square feet.

Both blocks of space are available at a time when demand is weak and there's a dearth of potential large office tenants. One of the largest new office deals this year was at the Ameriprise building. Valspar Corp. took 125,000 square feet for its corporate headquarters, relocating from its longtime home near the Metrodome.

Susan Feyder --612-673-1723

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