Calhoun Square is an enclosed shopping center at Hennepin Avenue and West Lake Street in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
It opened in February 1984, built partly from older storefronts and enclosed around a skylit atrium. The name came down in 2020, and the building became Seven Points.
Tenants left first. Famous Dave's closed in 2019 and Sephora in 2021. LA Fitness, the last large tenant, went after that, and the owner sued over unpaid rent.
Today the north end still has a coffee bar, a restaurant, and an art studio. The south end was demolished, with 228 apartments to go up in its place.
Dump Updale: the campaign against Calhoun Square
In the early 1980s, Ray Harris and his partners started buying up older storefronts at the southeast corner of Hennepin Avenue and West Lake Street, in the Uptown district of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The plan was an enclosed shopping center combining buildings that were already standing with new construction, including the Geanakoplos Building from 1917.
Part of the neighborhood tried to stop it.
Opponents ran a campaign called "Dump Updale," combining Uptown with the "dale" ending shared by Southdale, Ridgedale, Brookdale, and Rosedale.
Their argument: Uptown worked because its shops opened onto the street, and an indoor mall would import the suburbs. Harris built it anyway.
By 1984, construction was almost complete, and Calhoun Square opened on February 15, 1984 with roughly 65 retail spaces, most of them leased before the work was done.
The atrium, the skylights, and the pointed crown
An atrium ran up through the middle of the building, with the upper floors looking down into it and stairs and escalators between the retail levels.
Skylights brought daylight into an enclosed mall in a dense city block.
The exterior kept portions of the older buildings while the interior tied them into one system of passages.
Over the years, more ground-floor shops added their own doors onto Hennepin and Lake, so you could reach a store without setting foot inside the mall.
Above the corner, the roofline carried a pointed crown. It was decoration for 36 years. Then it became the building's name.
Odegard Books, Figlio, and a Prince song
The center opened without a department-store anchor.
Its tenant list ran on local businesses: Odegard Books, a post office, a community newsstand, and Bay Street Shoes.
Kitchen Window arrived by 1989 and stayed for decades.
Figlio held the corner restaurant space at Hennepin and Lake for 25 years, and Famous Dave's opened a BBQ and Blues room in 1996.
Hennepin and Lake was one of the busiest transit-transfer corners in the city, so the mall sat where people already were.
Prince wrote a song called "Calhoun Square," released in 1998 on the collection "Crystal Ball."
The district taxed itself to create Minnesota's first Special Service District, which paid for extra snow removal, trash collection, and decorative lighting.
H&M, LA Fitness, and a fight over CB2
Harris and his partners held the property for about two decades, then sold in June 2004 for $28.1 million.
The buyers planned 108 condominiums and more than 100,000 square feet of new commercial space.
None of it was built, and the center went back on the market in 2007.
A BlackRock affiliate paid $47.3 million that July and renovated from 2008, reworking tenant spaces and adding two levels to the parking ramp, which reached about 730 spaces.
H&M took 23,000 square feet across two levels, and LA Fitness opened upstairs in April 2010.
CB2 was harder.
Neighbors argued that a low store at 3045 Hennepin Avenue wasted a prominent corner, and the design was revised so more could be built above it later.
CB2 opened in late 2011.
Ackerberg moved the front door
Local ownership returned in 2014, when the Ackerberg Group paid $67 million for the shopping center and $2.5 million for a vacant parcel on West Lake Street, $69.5 million in all.
The 2015 remodel changed the way in. The main entrance at Hennepin and Lake became leasable retail, and the door moved east along Lake Street.
Parella opened that year in the old Figlio corner, rebuilt after water damage.
Then the tenants went. Famous Dave's closed in 2019 after more than two decades, Libertine closed that September, and CB2 followed in 2022.
Victoria's Secret and Apple closed elsewhere in Uptown in the same stretch.
Northpond Partners bought the center and the adjacent parcel in October 2019 for $34.5 million in cash, half what the property had traded for five years earlier.
Why the Calhoun Square name came down in 2020
Fig + Farro closed in May 2020, and the corner restaurant space was empty again.
The name went next. Calhoun Square was named for Lake Calhoun, and the lake for John C. Calhoun, who defended slavery.
Minnesota had already restored the lake's Dakota name, Bde Maka Ska.
On June 19, 2020, the owner said the mall would lose the name too, and on October 21 it became Seven Points, after the crown on the roof.
On June 3, 2021, two sheriff's deputies serving on a federal task force shot and killed Winston Boogie Smith in a vehicle on the top level of the parking ramp.
Protests and street occupations followed, and demonstrators built a memorial garden on the property.
In July the owner hired private security and removed the garden, which drew complaints of excessive force.
What 228 apartments will replace
Sephora closed in early 2021. LA Fitness, the last large tenant, left, and the owner sued over roughly $255,000 in unpaid base rent.
The enclosed mall was close to empty.
Doran Companies took down the southern section, including the CB2 building and the former Famous Dave's and Kitchen Window spaces, and is putting up a five-story building with 228 apartments.
Commercial floor area falls from 234,900 square feet to 173,100.
The Planning Commission approved the plan on July 21, 2025, and a City Council committee denied an appeal on August 12.
Of the apartments, 46 are held for 30 years for households earning no more than 50 percent of area median income.
The north end stays open.
In August 2026 the building still has Curioso Coffee Bar, Roat Osha, Jimmy John's, and an art gallery, and the next phase calls for a new Hennepin Avenue storefront and tenants to fill it.
Independent Publisher Notice
BestAttractions is an independent editorial publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any location, business, property owner, manager, government agency, or organization described in this article.
Comments posted on this page are not forwarded to, reviewed by, or acted upon by any entity mentioned in the article.
For official inquiries, complaints, applications, bookings, or other requests, please contact the relevant entity directly through its official website or other verified channels.