Three nights ago, Third Eye Blind closed out Hilde Amplified at the Hilde Performance Center, the last of two nights that also brought Brett Young, Ashley McBryde, Rodney Atkins and Matt Stell to the same stage on July 31. Anyone who left the show hungry had an option that didn't exist a year ago: drive over to the corner of I-494 and Bass Lake Road, where a grocery store now keeps its kitchens open into the evening.
That grocery store is Coborn's Market & Table, and calling it a grocery store undersells what has happened at that intersection since March. Two projects with no relationship to each other, one built by a private developer and one run by the city, have given Plymouth something it has never quite had: a reason to show up without an errand attached. Neither one set out to build a downtown. For one summer, together, they have functioned like one anyway.
The Corner That Used to Be an Office Campus
The Boulevard is the name developers gave to the 75 acres at Bass Lake Road and I-494 that used to hold Prudential Financial's regional campus. Roers Companies and Scannell Properties are building it out in phases, with plans for medical office space, a business campus, grocery-anchored retail, restaurants and multifamily housing along the corridor. Summit Orthopedics broke ground first, in October 2024, and its 78,000-square-foot clinic became the site's first open tenant. The project's future park, with nature trails and green space, is not slated for construction until 2027.
Coborn's Market & Table moved faster. The store opened March 12, becoming both the anchor tenant of The Boulevard and, in the months since, the reason people who don't need groceries on a Friday night still end up there.
What Actually Opened in March
Coborn's built the store around what it calls a grocerant format, which in practice means three separate restaurants operating inside a grocery store rather than a deli counter tacked onto one. The chain recruited Minneapolis chef David Fhima, fresh off opening his Sicilian restaurant Vagabondo in Excelsior, to run three fast casual concepts under one shared name, The Global Table:
- Basta Pasta, built around house-made pastas and sauces
- Abuela's Mexican Kitchen, family recipes and made-to-order tortillas
- Brother's Burgers, using grass-fed beef sourced from Thousand Hills in Becker
Alicia Hinze brought her bakery and cafe, The Buttered Tin, to Plymouth as its third location after outposts in northeast Minneapolis and St. Paul. Hinze is a James Beard-recognized chef and a former winner of Food Network's "Cupcake Wars." Coborn's rounded the lineup out with Penny Horse Parlor, a scoop shop named for the company's old penny horse ride and stocked with Kemps ice cream.
None of this reads like a grocery run. Guests eat inside near a fireplace or outside next to a mural and a small performance stage, and kids have a playground to burn off energy in while the adults finish coffee. The store also houses an 8,600-square-foot wine and spirits shop, a fuel kiosk, and a pickup counter for Mulberry's Garment Care, the kind of errand stacking that turns one stop into an evening rather than a chore.
None of this required City Hall's help to happen. A different piece of infrastructure, built for a different reason years earlier, happened to hit its busiest season at the same time.
A Public Stage That Was Already Running
The Hilde Performance Center predates The Boulevard by years. Its amphitheater, secondary stage and pond deck sit among wetlands off Plymouth Boulevard, and the venue has hosted touring acts before this year, including a stop from Kelsea Ballerini in 2022 and a show from Big Head Todd and the Monsters in 2024. What changed in 2026 is how much got packed into a single season.
| Date | Event | Status as of August 4 |
|---|---|---|
| June 12 | Hilde Nights: Mallrats, with Cole Allen Band and Sena Ehrhardt | Held |
| July 8 | Music in Plymouth: Minnesota Orchestra plus fireworks | Held |
| July 17 | Hilde Nights: Kat Perkins Country Roads Band, with Nathan Dean Band | Held |
| July 31 to Aug 1 | Hilde Amplified: Brett Young, Ashley McBryde, Rodney Atkins, Matt Stell, Third Eye Blind | Held |
| Aug 20 | Plymouth Kids Fest | Upcoming |
| Aug 28 | Hilde Nights: Fabulous Armadillos, with The Holy Rocka Rollaz | Upcoming |
| Sept 19 | Rhythm & Brews | Upcoming |
The free nights and the ticketed ones run on different rules. Hilde Nights and Music in Plymouth cost nothing to attend, and the July 8 orchestra show ran a free shuttle from three park-and-ride lots so nobody had to find parking near the stage. Hilde Amplified worked the opposite way: tickets, a road closure on Plymouth Boulevard between the roundabouts at City Hall and the Life Time entrance, and hotel packages built around the weekend for out-of-town concertgoers. Both models filled the same lawn.
Two Timelines, Not One Plan
Here is the part that is easy to miss if you only notice one half of it. The Boulevard runs on a private developer's construction schedule, with a park that will not break ground until 2027 and a business campus still being built out. Hilde runs on the city's annual event calendar, a rhythm that has repeated every summer for years. Neither project was built to complement the other. Coborn's did not open in March because the city's concert season was strong that year, and the city did not book Third Eye Blind because a grocery store had just opened down the road. The two timelines simply landed in the same five-month window in 2026, and residents are the ones who get to treat the result as a single season rather than two disconnected openings.
That is worth knowing because it sets expectations for what comes next. Plymouth does not have a historic Main Street the way Wayzata or Long Lake do, where storefronts have accumulated along one walkable block for a century. It has whatever happens to be finishing construction or hitting its calendar peak in a given year, spread across a city built around highways rather than a downtown grid. This summer that meant a grocery store's opening month lined up with a concert venue's busiest stretch. Next year the piece that matures might be the Boulevard's business campus, or the park breaking ground, or neither, and the gathering spot will look different again.
What's Still Ahead This Summer
Three dates on the calendar have not happened yet. Plymouth Kids Fest runs Aug 20 with entertainment and activities aimed at families. The final free Hilde Nights show of the season follows Aug 28, with Fabulous Armadillos headlining a night of classic rock and roll and The Holy Rocka Rollaz opening. Rhythm & Brews closes out the run Sept 19. None of them require a ticket purchased months in advance, and all three sit within a short drive of a grocery store that will still be serving dinner when the show lets out.
The Takeaway for Anyone Already Living Here
The corner of Bass Lake Road and I-494 will keep changing for years as The Boulevard fills in its remaining phases. The stage off Plymouth Boulevard will keep running its usual summer calendar long after this year's lineup is forgotten. Neither one is trying to become a downtown, and that is exactly why watching them land in the same season matters. Plymouth builds its gathering places in pieces, on separate schedules, and this year the pieces happened to fit.
If you already call Plymouth home and want to talk through what a shifting corridor like this one might mean for your property's value or your next move within the neighborhood, the team at Avenues & Acres Home Team knows this stretch of the west metro block by block. Request Your Free Concierge Consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
