EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — If you want a decent Asian grocery store or the best Asian cuisine, Eden Prairie might not be where you'd look first. But the owners of the coming indoor Asia Mall hope that'll soon change.
Amor Zhao is one the owners of the Asia Mall. He said the two-story project is almost 60% complete. The mall will be located at 12160 Technology Drive, right off I-494 at the site of the shuttered Gander Outdoors.
"When they stop in here they will say ‘Wow,'" Zhao said.
But for now, the dusty construction site is a sign of something new for Pho Mai restaurant owner and Eden Prairie resident Michael Bui.
"This will be our flagship restaurant," Bui said. "We own three other restaurants in the Twin Cities right now."
He’s secured one of the largest of the roughly 22 spaces in what will be the new Asia Mall. "I'm used to going to Chicago, New York, California to really go to Asia Town or Little Saigon or Chinatown or Korea Town so once I heard about this facility, just super excited as a customer then as a business owner I knew I had to be in here," Bui said.
When you narrow it down even more, Bui said "Right now, if you want the best Korean food you might have to drive to Saint Paul, best Vietnamese food Brooklyn Park, it's gonna be all here," Bui said.
The floor plans spread around the construction site help us understand the magnitude of this project, while at the same time they also help us see the future of this place.
"This is Hot Pot City," Zhao points out as he gives us a short tour of the construction site. Zhao came to the U.S. in 1998 and began working in the restaurant industry. But he said this is a place where they're not only showcasing Asian cuisine.
He hopes to serve people.
"We try to bring the CPA, attorneys," he said. "We also have our own Western Union kind of thing right in this area too," Zhao points out, as many families in the U.S. sometimes send money back to families in their native country.
The project’s anchor store is a local Asian-owned grocery store that will set itself apart from others for one big reason.
"I believe this will be the largest live seafood section in the Twin Cities," Marshall Nguyen said. Nguyen is the Asia Mall ownerships commercial real estate broker and advisor. He hopes the mall's location, a couple of minutes from the airport and Mall of America, will make it a destination.
"We’ve been inspired by different cultures here such as the Hmong Village where they were able to create something for their people, also the Somali community as well," Nguyen said.
But Nguyen goes on to say this project is different because they're bringing many Asian cultures together in one place. "This project is unique in a sense that we want to create something for everyone, for them to experience a little bit of Asia without ever leaving," Nguyen said.
Bui understands that, saying he was elated because "We don't have anything like this in Minnesota." Bui said he will bring the concepts from his existing restaurants into his flagship restaurant at Asia Mall. Imagining what their restaurant will look like among pallets of material is far from what his parents ever thought when they opened their businesses.
Bui shows us the area for quick service, the bar, and a fine dining area.
"Just because our parents didn't have the capital back then," Bui said. "They couldn't even barely speak English, but now as more of the kids have grown up and we went to school, we went to business school we know what it takes to really succeed," he said.
Dreams can come at a hefty price. Nguyen and Zhao declined to say how much the project is estimated to cost. But Bui is clear.
"It's almost everyone's life savings basically," he said. "We're investing because we feel so strongly about this location, about this concept and we believe it will be truly successful," Bui said.
They’re betting on something that you can’t really put a price on: the ability to be a part of something new and to work and thrive in a place with other Asian-owned businesses.
"Oh, it's just going to be synergy," Bui said. "It's gonna be a terrific opportunity for people to come and experience Asian culture, the food, the businesses but also one-stop shop," he said.
As far as timeline, the Asia Mall ownership doesn't want to put a definitive opening date out to the public because they have already dealt with a plethora of supply chain issues. They're just saying 'hopefully summer.'
If you want more information on the Asia mall, visit here.
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