Visionary Eye Care
Excelsior, MN | Retail + Hospitality
There's a particular challenge in designing a space that has to do two things at once — and do both of them well. The new home of Visionary Eye Care, located at 400 Water Street in Excelsior, Minnesota, asks exactly that of its approximately 1,260 square feet of storefront space: to function as a precision-calibrated optometric practice and, in the same breath, to present as a compelling retail showroom.
Getting that balance right requires more than competent space planning. It requires a clarity of vision — pun inevitable — about what the brand is, what the patient experience should feel like, and how the physical environment can do the heavy lifting of communicating both.
RoehrSchmitt Architecture + Interiors brings to this project a track record of designing environments where rigor of function and quality of experience are equally non-negotiable. Our work on OVO LASIK + LENS in Minneapolis — and the Whiting Clinic before that — demonstrated what's possible when a technically demanding space refuses to look or feel like one — when light is treated as a material, custom millwork carries narrative weight, and every detail is filtered through the lens of how a patient moves through and perceives the space.
The Excelsior location presents its own opportunities. A storefront on Water Street, in a community known for its walkable, boutique character, invites a design that engages the street and rewards the curious once they arrive. The compact space will work hard: client lobby, exam rooms, dispensing areas, and product display all competing cooperatively for square footage, each with distinct functional demands.
What ties it together is the brand itself — which, as it happens, RoehrSchmitt also helped to shape. When the design process surfaced the need for a logo to work with for signage, the firm developed one, folding identity work into the architecture rather than treating it as someone else's problem. Channeling the aspirations of Drs. Elton, Oda, and Bedi — for a practice that doesn't feel like a franchise and doesn't apologize for being beautiful — run from the sign on the door through all the details within.
Dreaming big?
PROJECT PHOTOS BY GAFFER PHOTOGRAPHY