If you live or work in Eden Prairie, or even have just driven through, you’ve probably seen plenty of changes. Some businesses and buildings are new. Some are gone. Some have been altered.
The Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce sponsors an annual Economic Development Bus Tour that highlights what’s gone on in the past year. This year’s tour took place in July and was emceed by David Lindahl, economic development manager for Eden Prairie.
Ride along on the tour in this three-part series to learn more. This is Part 3. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the corporate world saw a shift in the use of office space, and Eden Prairie was not immune. The largely developed suburb is also seeing a rise in apartment construction and new housing developments.
As the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce‘s Economic Development Bus Tour rolled through the city this summer, David Lindahl, the city’s economic development manager, pointed out vacant office space. After the pandemic prompted many companies to shift employees to remote work, leaving buildings empty, the city is exploring ways to give them new life.
Kraus-Anderson, a Minneapolis-based construction company, owns the Prairie Lakes Office Park at 11000 Prairie Lakes Drive and is considering demolishing the building for new apartments or townhomes.
Lindahl noted that nearby townhomes, at a density of about 17 units per acre, could draw pushback from residents in lower-density neighborhoods who oppose higher-density housing.
Though the office market is generally struggling, Lindahl said there are exceptions. For example, the 250,000-square-foot One Southwest Crossing building is at 95% occupancy.
“They’ve added the right amenities to make it attractive for people to want to be at work, and part of it is the FRGMT Coffee, and food,” Lindahl said. “I think that’s a big draw. In fact, they get people that just show up for the coffee experience, and they don’t even (work in) office in the building.”
FRGMT Coffee, like the word fragment, is a Minneapolis-based coffee shop that expanded to Eden Prairie in 2022, according to the shop’s website.
The tour made its way past the Lifetouch building at 11000 Viking Drive. Though the campus used to have two buildings, Lindahl said a developer tore one down because Lifetouch no longer needed the space.
Lindahl said the developer bought the two buildings with plans to create a multi-tenant campus. However, a parking shortage meant the project would have required a ramp, which was not economically feasible.
Instead, Lifetouch signed a long-term lease for its current building, and the developer tore down the other, resolving parking issues, Lindahl said. Lifetouch became part of Shutterfly in a 2018 purchase.
“The city was not thrilled to see a beautiful Class A office building go down, and by the way, the overall tax value go down,” Lindahl said. “But it was a market reality, and it was a little bit out of our hands.”
Vikings Winter Park still empty; biotech redevelopment on hold
The Golden Triangle area is one of the Twin Cities’ largest business parks, nearly 1,000 acres bordered by Interstate 494 and Hwys. 169 and 212, Lindahl said. About 25,000 people worked there before the pandemic.
The majority of the area is made up of office space, but Lindahl noted there has been a transition to building more housing in the area, especially near the light rail station with developments like The Fox and the Grouse.
North of I-494 in the Golden Triangle is the Winter Park campus at 9520 Viking Drive. The Minnesota Vikings practiced there from the 1980s until 2018, Lindahl said. The site has sat vacant since the team moved to Eagan.
Lindahl said the city talks with the space’s developer about once a year to discuss redevelopment, but there is not a clear plan for what’s next for the 12-acre property.
Lindahl hypothesized that it would become apartments. The Wilf family, which owns both the Winter Park space and the Minnesota Vikings, is known for its real estate investments.
“That’s a big opportunity site,” Lindahl said of Winter Park.
A studio at 6740 Shady Oak Road for on-air shopping channels, known variously as ShopNBC, ShopHQ, and EVINE Live, also recently closed, Lindahl said. The closure is likely because of the rise in online shopping.
“I expect that we’re going to see either a new business in these buildings, or potentially a redevelopment,” Lindahl said.
Many of the Golden Triangle’s buildings date to the 1970s and ’80s, Lindahl said. New projects are likely to feature higher ceilings, which increase storage capacity in industrial flex tech buildings.
One planned redevelopment, at 7075 Flying Cloud Drive, is on hold due to what Lindahl referred to as the “economic headwinds that are facing life sciences companies.”
Aldevron, a North Dakota-based biotech company that develops and manufactures plasmid DNA, RNA, and proteins, sought city approval in 2023 for an addition just shy of 100,000 square feet.
The Eden Prairie City Council approved the addition in January 2024, saying it would bring 500 jobs to the area. “It’s all on hold now,” Lindahl said on the bus tour. “So, kind of a bummer. Hopefully they move forward with the original plan, but we’ll see.”
On the farm, on the table and in the office
Near the edge of the Golden Triangle are Flying Dutchman Spirits, at 6801 Flying Cloud Drive, and the Dvorak farm, which overlooks Shady Oak Road. Lindahl had comments on both.
The distillery and lounge in the largely industrial area, now under new ownership, “had to put up with a lot during the construction of light rail,” including a nearby bridge project. “Fortunately, they survived it,” he said.
As for the farm, it once encompassed much of the surrounding area, Lindahl said. Approximately 10 acres remain family-owned and occupied. Lindahl recalled that he used to call patriarch Ed Dvorak “to say, ‘Hey, Ed, just checking if you know what your plans are.’ And he would say, ‘This property will develop over my dead body.'”
Farms, however, were purchased to create the City West area, Lindahl said. He recalled that developer Don Anderson envisioned it as a master-planned community with mixed-use development.
The City West area lies just outside the northwest portion of the Golden Triangle, roughly bordered by Hwy. 212, Hwy. 62 and Shady Oak Road. It includes offices, showrooms, residential townhomes and apartments, and the Shady Oak Road retail strip, Lindahl said.
The former Campiello’s restaurant, now TJ Hooligan’s, and the former Woody’s Grille, now Kevin’s Italian Bistro, are located in that retail strip.
“But, you know, some of these office buildings have struggled” in the area, Lindahl said.
One Village Place at 6436 City West Parkway, the old headquarters of the Christmas decor company Department 56, is being torn down to make way for more apartment complexes, Lindahl said. Roers Co., which is also redeveloping downtown Chanhassen, is heading up the project.
Optum’s corporate campus revamped its security measures after Brian Thompson, the CEO of Optum’s sister company UnitedHealthcare, was assassinated in New York last year, Lindahl said. Part of the security includes fencing around the perimeter of the offices. Optum and UnitedHealthcare’s parent company is UnitedHealth Group.
“Security is really kind of a major focus for them right now,” Lindahl said. “You used to be able to get up and down Optum Way with no problem at all. Now, they have guard shacks at each side. You can’t get through unless you have security clearance.”
Additionally, UnitedHealth Group (UHG), one of the state’s largest employers, has moved its headquarters from Minnetonka to the Optum campus at 11000 Optum Circle, Lindahl said. Optum will use two of the campus buildings, while UnitedHealth will use one.
The company also has city approval to build a fourth building if needed, Lindahl said. However, it likely will not be necessary for some time because of office vacancies since the pandemic.
American Family Insurance recently vacated its campus in Opus Business Park, Lindahl said. That portion of the area just north of Crosstown Highway 62 is actually in Eden Prairie, though the area is associated with Minnetonka. The campus was torn down, making way for two new buildings with both commercial and industrial uses, one of which already has a tenant lined up.
Farther south, at 6889 Rowland Road near Bryant Lake Regional Park, Lindahl pointed out the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies headquarters. The grantmaking organization built its LEED-certified building, which meets strict environmental standards, in 2016.
New hotel? New museum?
On the southern side of Bryant Lake Regional Park, Eden Prairie Schools recently purchased the UNFI building at 11840 Valley View Road after the company put it on the market because its employees transitioned to online work, Lindahl said.
“The outlook was pretty dim for selling that office building, or finding tenants or new companies to lease it,” Lindahl said. “So the school district came out of nowhere and ended up buying the property.”
The district will use the first two floors of the building for its TASSEL transition program, which helps young adults with disabilities develop postsecondary education, employment and independent living skills, as well as other school programming, Lindahl said. The upper level will be leased as office space to help offset costs.
The school’s purchase of the office building impacted only a portion of the UNFI property east of I-494 and north of Valley View Road.
The Marriott Residence Inn at 7780 Flying Cloud Drive will not renew its contract for that location, Lindahl said. The company is looking to buy property from UNFI to build a four-story hotel with an adjacent restaurant.
Lindahl also hinted at a possible future museum highlighting innovative Eden Prairie inventions. He said discussions have occurred with Scott Crump, co-founder of Stratasys and a pioneer in 3D printing. One potential location is Eden Prairie Center mall.
Danfoss and ADC: What’s next?
Some Eden Prairie inventions came from Lynn “Buck” Charlson, who founded the Char-Lynn Company, a hydraulics manufacturer, in 1965. The 59-acre site at 14615 Lone Oak Road is now owned by Danfoss, which includes a large office building, a water tower and a few other small buildings. Danfoss is trying to sell the land.
The city and Danfoss disagree about the best use for the land, Lindahl said. Eden Prairie prefers the property be used for a mix of commercial and residential, while Danfoss prefers to keep it industrial. That includes retaining the 350,000-square-foot industrial building that has stood there since 1965.
A plan that floated around for a while, even before Danfoss wanted to sell, was a Top Golf, Lindahl said. However, when the city reached out to Top Golf about the plan again, the business was hesitant because it is building a facility in Woodbury.
Lindahl told bus passengers to expect a lot of activity in the area over the next couple of years.
Also on the Danfoss property sits a lone oak tree, from which Lone Oak Road gets its name, Lindahl affectionately pointed out. “I’ll be sad to see that go, if it does have to go,” Lindahl said.
While the city has found solutions for many of the empty office buildings, there are still a few vacant buildings with no plans for what is next, Lindahl said.
The former ADC campus at 13625 Technology Drive, for example, was leased to Optum, which did not renew its lease, Lindahl said. The campus consists of three buildings that are difficult to subdivide, thus the campus is not getting much attention.
There were conversations about turning the buildings into a senior living campus, but the developer would have to sell the space for likely just the land value, Lindahl said.
“I hate to see that building get scrapped and redeveloped, because I think it’s got a lot of value, and I do think the office market will come back,” Lindahl said. “At some point, there will be a big company, or a couple of companies, that will be looking for space in the suburbs, right next to the light rail station. It’s got a lot going on for it.”
That building and 12125 Technology Drive, at the corner of Technology and Prairie Center drives, are “kind of our last big vacancies,” Lindahl said. He added that Optum also owns about 35 acres of vacant land next to the 13625 Technology Drive site, between Mitchell Road and Anderson Lakes Parkway.
Etc.: Developments not discussed on the tour
Though not discussed on the bus tour, a housing development on the Marshall family farm at 9905 Dell Road is also in the works.
The development, called Marshall Gardens, will include 15 single-family homes and 100 townhomes, as previously reported by EPLN. The homes are mainly targeted at empty nesters.
The 32-acre neighborhood will include more than 18 acres of open space, according to the developer, with 2.5 acres dedicated to a community garden.
The development includes other amenities, such as a fitness center, outdoor pool and club room, according to the developer.
Also underway is the construction of an office-warehouse building north of Highway 5 and west of Martin Drive and Wallace Road. Approved by the council in March, the Highway 5 Business Center project by Endeavor Development has no identified end user as of yet.
The new 52,000-square-foot building was approved for construction on land formerly owned by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which made it tax-exempt.
The Highway 5 Business Center was on the original agenda for the 2025 Economic Development Bus Tour, but a late start meant Lindahl ran out of time to discuss it.
At the end of the tour, Lindahl hinted this year’s ride might have been his last. “I haven’t announced anything officially, but it’ll probably be my last tour for the chamber,” he said, “unless they hire me as a freelancer.”
Editor’s Note: David Lindahl is a member of Eden Prairie Local News’ board of directors. Joanna Werch Takes contributed to this report.
Comments
We offer several ways for our readers to provide feedback. Your comments are welcome on our social media posts (Facebook, X, Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn). We also encourage Letters to the Editor; submission guidelines can be found on our Contact Us page. If you believe this story has an error or you would like to get in touch with the author, please connect with us.