It is finally confirmed, the national sports retailer anticipated to be joining the Baxter business landscape is indeed Dick's Sporting Goods.
Wayzata-based HJ Development confirmed the entire list of stores planned for its retail center to be constructed on 8.87 acres between Costco and J.C. Penney Co. Until now, the name of the national sports retailer was not released although it was strongly suspected to be Dick's Sporting Goods. The land where the retail center will be constructed off Elder Drive in Baxter is wooded and undeveloped currently. Construction on the project is expected to break ground later this month.
Dick's Sporting Goods will be joined by previously announced tenants-T.J. Maxx, ULTA Beauty and PetSmart. All have signed leases for the 90,000-square-foot project, HJ Development reported this week. Plans call for completion of the building by the fall of 2017. Tenants T.J. Maxx, ULTA Beauty and PetSmart are planning to open in the fall and Dick's Sporting Goods expected to open in the spring of 2018.
Dick's Sporting Goods was founded in 1948 by 18-year-old Dick Stack in Binghamton, N.Y. According to the company's own bio, the teenage Stack-an avid angler-was working at an Army surplus store in Binghamton when the owner asked him to come up with a list of products to get into the fishing tackle business. The company is now based in Pittsburgh.
"After Dick presented his suggestions, the owner told him he was a dumb kid and had no idea what he was doing," Dick's Sporting Goods notes on its website. "Dick was upset and promptly quit. He went to his grandmother's house where he spent a lot of time as a kid and told her what had happened."
ADVERTISEMENT
His grandmother took $300 out of a cookie jar where she kept her life savings and funded his startup to build his own bait-and-tackle shop. By 1958, he expanded the product line into what is found in the sporting goods chain today, which his children grew to include 645 stores as of 2016. There are 10 Dick's Sporting Goods stores in Minnesota.
In addition, HJ Development confirmed plans to build a 7,000-square-foot retail strip center nearby on the southwest corner of Highway 371 and Glory Road-by Wal-Mart and across the street from Olive Garden. Construction of that building is planned to start in the spring of 2017.
HJ Development was founded in 1983. Current owners include Jeff Carriveau, Gary Janisch and Chris Moe, who has presented the plans for these projects before the Baxter City Council. HJ Development is a full service real estate company specializing in commercial development,
acquisitions and long term management of those investments. HJ reports it owns and manages a portfolio in excess of 1.3 million square feet.
