By Tom Webb

St. Paul Pioneer Press

BLOOMINGTON — It took longer than expected, but Mall of America is filling up the department-store-sized vacancy left by Bloomingdale’s 2012 departure.

Starting Friday, outdoor-goods retailer L.L. Bean holds the grand opening of its 29,000-square-foot store, located on the megamall’s first level. It’s the Maine chain’s first store west of the Mississippi River.

Beyond that, Mall of America is negotiating with a sporting goods retailer that would occupy more of the old Bloomingdale’s space on the megamall’s southeast corner.

“We have one floor left and we’re talking to a really cool sporting goods store,” Maureen Bausch, MOA’s executive vice president for business development, said Wednesday. “I can’t tell you the name of it yet.”

But it won’t happen before 2015, Bausch said. Adding a sporting goods store, along with outdoors retailer L.L. Bean, would help address what Bausch sees as an issue for MOA: It is a little light on stores that appeal to men.

L.L. Bean spokesman Mac McKeever said the company’s clientele tends to be “pretty evenly split” between men and women. Then again, most of its other stores are not inside major shopping malls, so it is stocking the store accordingly, and understands it may draw a different mix of shoppers.

“Mall of America is probably not top-of-mind for where you’ll buy your decoys,” McKeever said.

The store will showcase an array of cold-weather clothing as well as gear for camping, fishing, snowshoeing and — in warmer months — kayaking.

It also will carry footwear, including its famed Bean Boot.

McKeever said the Bloomington megamall was appealing to L.L. Bean because of its immense drawing power of 40 million visitors a year, giving it a strong platform to introduce the brand to Midwestern consumers. The company has done a brisk mail-order business here for decades, but had no stores closer than Chicago.

Back in January 2012, Bloomingdale’s announced it was closing its only store in Minnesota, leaving a gigantic vacant space at the nation’s largest shopping mall.