Patina, the Twin Cities gift store chain known for its mix of home décor, jewelry and lifestyle goods, is about to open its largest store yet in Richfield. The new location at Southdale Square will become the company's ninth in the metro.
The Richfield store is taking over a vacant storefront at Southdale Square previously occupied by Pier 1 Imports, according to Bring Me The News. Patina plans to soft open the Southdale Square store soon, with an official grand opening scheduled for October 17 featuring giveaways, activities, food and drinks, as first reported by Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. The new location, at 2900 West 66th Street, will have more square footage than any existing Patina store, with room for expanded women's apparel featuring actual dressing rooms, along with toys, crafts, and the home décor, jewelry and gifts the brand is known for.
A South Metro Milestone for a Founder-Built Business
Patina traces its roots back to September 1993, when married co-founders Rick Haase and Christine Ward opened the first store near Lake Harriet in South Minneapolis, next door to Broder's Cucina Italiana. They launched the business with $20,000 in personal savings, putting their home up as collateral, according to Twin Cities Business. That original shop operated in an era before cell phones, when restaurant staff next door would phone Patina's landline to let waiting diners know their table was ready.
Over three decades, Patina grew into an eight-store fixture across Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding suburbs, with locations in South Minneapolis, St. Paul's Selby & Snelling and Highland Park neighborhoods, Roseville, Woodbury, Golden Valley, Eden Prairie and Maple Grove. The chain also designs and produces roughly 20% of its own merchandise in-house, including its proprietary Mac and Me clothing and jewelry line, per the same Twin Cities Business report.
New Ownership Structure Behind the Expansion
In April 2025, Haase and Ward sold the business to Teamshares, a national platform that acquires small businesses from retiring owners with the intention of converting them to employee ownership rather than reselling them to private equity. Under the deal's terms, Patina employees received a set number of shares, with a structured path to reach 80% employee ownership within 20 years. Teamshares, founded in 2019, has acquired roughly 90 small and mid-sized businesses nationwide as part of an effort to preserve independent companies facing retirement succession, according to RollUpEurope, which notes an estimated 4.5 million American small business owners face retirement decisions over the coming decade.
Retail executive Liz Barrere was named Patina's president and CEO following the sale. She previously built Maple Grove-based Illume from a struggling candle company into a $65 million home fragrance and beauty brand, and began her retail career in product development at Dayton's and Marshall Field's, the outlet reports. Barrere said the Southdale location puts Patina in the south metro community it has long wanted to serve, and that the reimagined store design was developed collaboratively by the Patina team to reflect the company's heart and evolution.
Landing Next to a Reinvented Retail Giant
Southdale Square is a 115,500-square-foot outdoor shopping center near the border of Edina and Richfield, with co-tenants including Foss Swim School, Salons by JC, Cafe Zupas and Patrick's Bakery, according to Transwestern. Originally built in 1961 and extensively renovated in 2005, the center fronts West 66th Street, with York Avenue South nearby.
Southdale Center in Edina, the nation's first fully enclosed shopping mall, is slated for a $400 million makeover, with plans for a luxury repositioning by early 2025. Southdale Center originally opened in 1956 as the country's prototype indoor mall. With its ninth store, Patina is planting its largest footprint yet in the area, betting that its homegrown mix of gifts, apparel and in-house designed goods can draw shoppers already flocking to the area.
