Marked progress is being made on the Four Seas Super Buffet in East Brainerd Mall.

Construction crews were on site at the the future Chinese and sushi restaurant near Cub Foods, just off the intersection of Highway 210 and Mill Avenue. The restaurant is still moving through permits with the city of Brainerd. The Four Seas, part of a chain of Chinese restaurants, represents the latest one to join those already in Brainerd and Baxter from Diamond House in Brainerd to the China Buffets in Brainerd and Baxter and China Garden, which opened in 2006.

And a Panda Express was looking at the area for a possible location.

Names were recently dropped by people familiar with a proposal for redevelopment in Baxter in the Gander Mountain area.

Gander Mountain is just off Highway 371 in Baxter off Edgewood Drive.

Dropped names included Famous Footwear, an ALDI discount food market, T.J. Maxx, Petco, Dollar Tree, Michaels craft store and a mattress business.

ALDI opened its first grocery in 1976 and its website notes it has more than 1,000 stores now in 31 states. There is an ALDI in Waite Park.

Michaels and Petco were part of the previous redevelopmen plan for the Gander Mountain site. Public relations representatives with T.J. Maxx/Marshalls said they couldn’t confirm anything about a new store for this area at this time.

In 2011, Michaels, the art and craft store, and Petco, the pet supply store, were listed with permit applications with the city of Baxter for the retail redevelopment by Gander Mountain. The plan at that time was to create a couple of store locations in the parking lot and redevelop the building to include Gander Mountain and put new stores into the building, including space vacated with the closing of Ashley Furniture store. The entire site was previously home to the Walmart store before it built its supercenter farther south.

In 2011, documents filed with the city noted Gander Mountain leases space and occupied about 90,000 square feet while the space vacated by Ashley Furniture encompassed 25,000 square feet. Ashley Furniture closed in 2008, part of a flurry of furniture store closings as the Great Recession took hold and the housing and construction boom melted down.

RENEE RICHARDSON, senior reporter, may be reached at 855-5852 or renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com. Follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Dispatchbizbuzz.