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| Brigitte and Lon Feia
are happy about the increased visibility
that their business, Excellcom, has in the
new Carmichael Centre. The Feias teamed
with brothers Chad and Branden McDonald
in constructing the 23,838-square-foot business
condominium building off Carmichael Road
just north of the Target store. |
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Lon Feia was so busy with customers on the Wednesday
before Thanksgiving that he barely had time to have
his picture taken for the local newspaper.
“We’re loving this store. The traffic is
great,” said Feia’s wife and business partner,
Brigitte.
The increased visibility that the new location in the
Carmichael Centre has brought to their Excellcom cellular
phone store is what the Feias were
hoping for when they undertook construction of the
23,838-square-foot business condominium building.
Their partners in the project are brothers Chad and
Branden McDonald of Hudson. Branden works with his father,
Steve McDonald, in their American Family Insurance agency.
Chad has started a new remote camera monitoring business
named E-buckmail.com that also will be located in the
Carmichael Centre.
Lon Feia got the idea of building Carmichael Centre
after discovering how expensive it would be to put up
a building for his small business alone.
“We thought if we could do it as a condominium,
other owners of small businesses like us would be able
to own their own top-flight retail space at a fraction
of the cost of owning their own building,” he
told the Star-Observer when construction started last
spring.
The building site on the west side of Carmichael Road,
just north of the Target Store, had the added advantage
of providing high visibility for its occupants.
Excellcom was the first business to occupy the attractive,
two-story brick and glass building. It opened its shop
there on Nov. 21. Four days later, The Country Store
started selling furniture and home decor in a nearly
5,000-square-foot space on the first floor.
The building is 80 percent occupied, according to Lon
Feia, with some businesses purchasing space and others
leasing with the option to buy. Also coming to Carmichael
Centre are Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches, a
Bruegger’s bagel shop, St. Croix Mortgage, Kolashinski
Chiropractic office, a dentist, an orthodontist and
E-buckmail.com.
A restaurant space behind the curved glass at the north
end of the building was tentatively available as of
last week. A franchise restaurant was weighing moving
into the space.
Two office spaces on the second floor also are available.
One overlooks the Hudson Golf Club course.
The Feias started Excellcom in 1992, opening their
first store (which they still own and operate) in Maplewood,
Minn. They opened their Hudson shop in a leased space
on Second Street close to four years ago.
Excellcom sells cellular telephones and service by
all of the major providers - T-Mobile, Sprint, Nextel,
Cingular and Verizon. The business is an authorized
repair center for Nextel phones.
“So we sell them. We fix them. You don’t
need to go into the cities anymore,” Lon said.
The business also sells and installs Dish Network satellite
television service.
Its hours are 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10
a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays. The shop also is open from noon
to 5 p.m. on Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
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