If you live in the Twin Cities, you can check out one of our recently completed O&E projects in person at the Mall of America. The O&E team worked with the project management team at Design Build Solutions to remodel the 1200 square foot Mystic Lake Casino retail space for the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.
The objectives were to update the Mystic Lake store and tie it to the current casino marketing campaign, “Closer to the Action,” with an emphasis on laying the foundation for a positive, fun family experience at the Mystic lake Hotel & Casino. In addition, we were asked to create a portion of the store to display exhibits about tribal culture and history.
The current layout of the store was inherited from the previous owner and the environment was never reformatted to suit the Client. Our design goal was to reformat the store to suit the customers’ needs while enhancing the employees’ ability to provide service. Of course keeping cost under control is always expected. One of the early stated needs was to create a visual icon to draw visitors from the walkways into the store.
The final design carried some design elements from the main hotel and from the casino gaming areas. As you enter the space, the main desk is themed after a cashiers counter with a subtle hint to the “cage” in the metal work above the desk. The materials are mostly earthen in tone with a few hints of air and fire. All the materials are deep and rich to help convey the luxury and warmth of the hotel and casino environment.
To improve the store layout, we moved the main desk from one side of the store to the center, enabling the employees to better manage the two “halves” of the store without leaving any blind spots. The south half of the store was themed with a more subtle color palate and warmer tones. This area houses the cultural history exhibits. (below)
The north half (below) is more energetic with rich purple walls and dramatic lighting. Large flat screen displays are placed around the space with dynamic video content managed remotely by the casino marketing team.
The Icon developed to draw attention is a large, 11 foot tall, stylized teepee structure. Part traditional motif and part technological beacon, the dancing lights and art-deco patterns are reflections of both the casino environment and hotel lobby. Housed in one face of the teepee is an interactive video screen that provides information to visitors about the hotel and casino as well as upcoming events and promotions.
The store is located on the 2nd level of the Mall of America (near Sears), in Bloomington, Minnesota. For more information or to contact O&E Design Group to help with your retail project, visit our website!
