Harvard Market in Stadium Village RIP

The next closest convenience store is almost a mile away.

​This is bad news for a lot of University of Minnesota students.

Harvard Market, the only grocery store in Stadium Village, closed up shop earlier this week. The small corner store has been open for 106 years and is relied on by the dense population of University of Minnesota students living in on- and off-campus housing as the area's sole grocery store.

"This has been in the works for many years," says Asa Pearson, store manager. "We finally got word about the first of December."

A CVS/pharmacy and some apartment units will be taking over the space, located on Washington Avenue and Harvard Street SE, says Pearson.

​This shouldn't raise too many eyebrows--almost all of the old independent businesses around that corner have been swallowed by corporate chains over the past few years.

So where will all of the car-less college students go for groceries and cigarettes?

It looks like you're pretty much screwed, kids. The next closest grocery store is House of Hanson in Dinkytown almost a mile away--not the ideal walk carrying grocery bags through the snow.

Pearson says there are no plans re-open the market in a new location. Given the plans were in limbo for so long, she says, it was in some ways a relief to find out the shop was actually closing.

"But tearing this place apart over the past two days is just a little heart-wrenching," says Pearson.