Type: Senior cooperative

Units: 77

Height: 3 stories

Developer: United Properties

Architect: JSSH Arcitects

Details: Plans for a 77-unit senior housing building at the site of Kozlak's Royal Oak Restaurant in Shoreview have progressed this month with some key city approvals.

Bloomington-based United Properties has purchase agreements for the restaurant property as well as a next-door residence and is seeking to raze them to make way for Applewood Pointe of Shoreview.

Kozlak's, which plans to relocate, dates back to 1966 in its first incarnation as the Sandpiper. It occupies a strategic site in the Ramsey County suburb with good connections to major transit corridors and ­commercial/retail areas along Hwy. 96.

That made the location along Hodgson Road a good candidate for a more intensive use, such as senior housing, the developer suggested. The City Council agreed, approving a change in the city's comprehensive plan guiding the area from "office" to "senior residential" at its Dec. 16 meeting.

Under the plans, United Properties would merge the restaurant site and the neighboring home into a single 4.15-acre lot to host the three-story senior cooperative, which would feature units ranging in size from 1,175 to 1,828 square feet.

The project also was granted status as a planned unit development, giving it flexibility in meeting city zoning requirements. The council signed off on a "development stage" Planned Unit Development, with final approvals and a formal development agreement still to come.

Don Jacobson is a freelance writer in St. Paul. He can be reached at hotproperty.startribune @gmail.com.