Faribo Town Square

Faribo Town Square is the original enclosed mall in Faribault, MN.
At the cost of 2 million dollars, Western Land Corp opened the mall then known as Fairbo Plaza in 1963 with a Tempo department store and a Red Owl Family Center as its major tenants. Other tenants included Ben Franklin, Maytag laundromat, Plaza Shoes, Film Shop, Inc, Snyder Drug, United Fabric, Sidewalk cafe, a barber shop and a beauty shop. Faribo Plaza was the first Minnesota indoor shopping mall constructed outside of the major metropolitan areas.
Tempo was located at the north end of the mall. Red Owl was located in the southwest with Snyder’s inside of it. It’s now the home to Rust Consulting. Across from the Red Owl were Ben Franklin, Dusek’s bakery and the laundromat. Due to the large TEMPO sign over the mall, many residents called this the Tempo Mall and only learned its real name decades later.
At the time of the mall’s opening, Tempo was owned by Gamble-Skogmo while Red Owl was operated by General Mills. Gamble-Skogmo purchased Red Owl a few years later in 1968. Gamble-Skogmo was a retail conglomerate based out of St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
When the Faribo Red Owl location opened, Minnesota children's entertainers Casey Jones and Roundhouse Rodney were in attendance.
In 1975, the construction of Interstate 35 led to the mall's demise, since it was no longer on the main road. The opening of the Faribo West Mall, easily visible to this day, right off of I-35, spelled the beginning of the end of Faribo’s Plaza days as a retail mail.
In the mid-1980’s the mall’s management decided to convert the mall to office space. Management held a contest to choose a new name. The winner was Faribo Town Square.
There used to be a large Faribo Town Square outside of the mall, but it was removed in 2020.
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File:Faribo Town Square (Faribault, MN) - former retail mall
Category:Malls in Minnesota
Category:Gamble-Skogmo
Category:Red owl
Category:Tempo
Category:Tempo Department Stores
Category:Snyder Drug