A vacant property north of Highway 5 and west of Wallace Road and Martin Drive may soon be home to a 52,000-square-foot office-warehouse building.
The project was approved Tuesday, March 4, by the Eden Prairie City Council on a unanimous vote.
No end user has been identified for the building, currently called the Highway 5 Business Center. It would be built by Edina-based Endeavor Development, the same company that recently received approval from Eden Prairie to demolish the vacant American Family Insurance campus north of Crosstown Highway 62 and construct two industrial buildings there.
Years ago, the property along Highway 5 was home to industrial buildings with outside storage. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) later purchased it as right-of-way for the new Highway 212 and related improvements to Highway 5, leading to the demolition of the buildings. A remnant of those highway projects, the four-acre site was acquired by Endeavor Development in September.
Evan Mattson, Endeavor’s development manager, said his company’s project would create 20 to 40 jobs and generate property tax revenue. The site was tax-exempt under MnDOT ownership.
No public testimony was offered at the council hearing Tuesday. But, Mayor Ron Case said a couple of residents living northwest of the property expressed concern via email about the loss of trees that help block views and sound from the highway.
Case said he believes the building itself will effectively block noise. He asked the developer how the landscaping plan might help.
“We spent more time than typical on this project just because it’s visible from all four sides of the property lines,” said Mattson, noting that many of the trees now on the site are volunteer trees – trees that grow from seeds, all by themselves, and mostly cottonwoods.
“It’s an extremely visible site, and we wanted to make sure whatever we were putting in fit in with the neighborhood as well as the surrounding community in the long term. And so, I think when you look at the plantings that are on the landscaping plan, once they have really established and grown out, they’ll provide a premium to what’s on-site currently.”
The council’s vote also included approval of Endeavor’s request to begin land alteration earlier than normal.
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