Somali businesses in Minnesota: the malls of Minneapolis

The short version

Somali businesses in Minnesota grew from the 1990s around Lake Street, Cedar-Riverside and south Minneapolis. Many are small stalls inside indoor malls, called suuqs (markets), selling clothing, jewellery, electronics, halal food, travel and money transfer services (Somali business owners in the Twin Cities, CORE repository; Minnesota Daily).

How many

• A study of Somali business owners counted 129 Somali-owned street-front businesses and 245 Somali-owned businesses inside suuqs in the Twin Cities. Its sample covered about 38 percent of the street-front firms and 17 percent of those in malls (Somali business owners in the Twin Cities, CORE repository).
• A 2015 Concordia University study found 2,000 to 3,200 African-owned businesses in Minnesota, more than earlier estimates (Star Tribune, 2015).
• At Riverside Mall in Cedar-Riverside, 37 of 44 businesses were owned by women in 2015 (Star Tribune, Women drive success of Somali mall in Minneapolis).

The malls

Karmel Mall (2910 Pleasant Avenue South) has about 650 businesses; it is owned by the developer Basim Sabri. Madina Mall has about 40 shops (Sahan Journal, 25 June 2026). Other outlets have described five African malls within two miles of each other in south Minneapolis, each with 300 to 500 businesses (Minnesota Daily).

The 2025 to 2026 enforcement surge

US immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, called Operation Metro Surge, intensified in December 2025 (Minnesota Reformer, 9 September 2026). Reported effects on Somali business:

• At Karmel Mall, foot traffic fell by as much as 50 percent for some owners, and the owner reported $1.5 million of unpaid rent (Sahan Journal, 25 June 2026).
• At Madina Mall, 12 of 40 shops closed and returned their keys (same source).
• A Hennepin County survey of 81 Lake Street businesses found average revenue losses of $57,000 per business; 96 percent reported a negative impact (same source).
• Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said on 10 June 2026 that the surge cost the city almost $700 million, including $445 million of lost business revenue; the city set up a $7 million Small Business Resiliency Fund (same source).
• National outlets reported empty malls in January 2026 (Associated Press via WTOP, January 2026; Africanews, 19 January 2026).

Sources disagree

• Mall size. Counts for Karmel Mall run from "more than a hundred" businesses in some January 2026 reports to about 650 in Sahan Journal (sources above).
• The success story. Twin Cities Business has written about the gap between the picture of Somali business success and household incomes (Twin Cities Business). Minnesota Compass puts the median Somali household income at $49,554 for 2020 to 2024 (Minnesota Compass).

For the community itself, see Somalis in Minneapolis and St Paul.