By Nancy Huddleston, Editor 

After a summer full of rumors, it’s now official – the owners of Dundee Nursery have sold their 5.8 acre site at the corner of County Road 42 and Joppa Avenue to a developer who plans to build a Sonic Drive-in and a Walgreens.

Jerry and Elaine Theis and their son, Kevin, confirmed the sale this week, saying the decision was a complicated one that involved a variety of factors.

The first one is that Jerry and Elaine would like to retire from the day-to-day duties of running the business and work only part time. Their son, Kevin, is expected to take over running the family business at the beginning of 2008.

Kevin Theis acknowledged the statistics about second-generation businesses succeeding are pretty daunting – there’s an 80-90 percent failure rate. “The entrepreneurial spirit that was there when the business started doesn’t always transfer over to the second generation,” Kevin said. “So while I don’t expect that to be a problem here, it was something to think about when we looked at realistic options of transferring the business to the second generation.”

As well, the landscape of the area, so to speak, has changed. The Dundee location in Savage was feeling the pinch in the cash register due to tougher economic times and the site itself was being squeezed from both sides.

The city bought an acre of the Dundee property a few years ago to build a road behind the businesses as part of the County Road 42 Segment 8 project. Then this year, Scott County bought a quarter acre on the front of the Dundee site for the widening of CR 42.

“We were getting squeezed on both sides and as the site got smaller and smaller, it became more difficult for us to have the room we needed to operate the seasonal part of our business,” Kevin said.

Still, the Dundee site held a special place in the hearts of the Theis family, especially because of the tie to their employees.

“It’s not easy closing a store when you’ve got great employees like we’ve had in Savage,” Elaine said. “The employees were a real close-knit group.”

Kevin pointed out that employees at Dundee treated their customers as family.

“There was always a home town, country feel there when we’d have an open house or other events,” Kevin said. “People from the community would come in to visit. There was a real family-oriented atmosphere there.”

History of site

The Dundee site also has a lot of history. It was homesteaded by Michael Egan and remained a farm until the site was bought for Dundee Nursery. One customer even went so far as to bring in a story board that shows the Egan family history to an open house and gave it to the Theis family.

In addition to the Egan history, there’s Dundee history on the site, too.

There is no “Dundee” family, rather, legend has it that the nursery was named Dundee after the original owners put the names of junipers in a hat and drew one.

“That’s what we were always told,” said Elaine, who said the two original owners would never acknowledge the legend either way, rather when asked about the name, they’d just smile.

The original owners were Ray Sackter and Bob Neumer, who were in the Army together during World War II. They opened the business in 1946 in Minneapolis on Washburn Avenue. The business was then moved to Newton and Highway 55, then to Lilac and 55 and finally to Plymouth at the intersection of Highway 55 and County Road 9.

Jerry Theis became the third partner in 1957 at the age of 21. He’s worked for Dundee since he was 18 and, as he says, “grew with the business.” In 1978, one of the original owners retired, and the second original owner retired in 1988, leaving the Theis family as the sole owners, which is when Elaine joined the family business.

The land for the Savage location was purchased in 1981 and the business opened in 1982 when County Road 42 was a two-lane road.

“The area was growing significantly and it looked like a place we could do some business,” Jerry said.

What’s next?

The Savage Planning Commission got its first look at River Bend Plaza development plan this week. The main attraction is the Sonic Drive-in, the first one in the state.

A representative of Net Lease Development LLC said they plan to demolish the building and greenhouses on the site and get construction under way this year. The Sonic and Walgreens are expected to be open by next summer.

Sonic, which specializes in a burger-themed menu with fries, milkshakes and freezies, will be 1,700-square-feet and include drive-in, drive-thru and walk-up services. Traffic through the site will primarily be one way due to the nature of the business operation. Angled parking under a protective canopy will be used for the drive-in stalls and a row of parking on one side of the site will be provided for patrons of the dining room/outdoor seating area.

Walgreens will occupy a 14,800-square-foot building and will include a drive-thru pharmacy and 63 parking stalls.

There’s also room on the site for a 21,000-square-foot retail building and a 2,100-square-foot coffee shop (or similar use) for future development to the south.

Traffic will enter River Bend Plaza from Joppa Avenue or Corporate Center Drive (the service road to the rear of the property).

 Nancy Huddleston can be reached at editor@savagepacer.com.