Type: For-sale housing

Units: 31 detached townhouses, 29 single-family homes

Developer: Centra Homes

Details: A year after they had originally hoped to break ground, the developers of a new single-family home subdivision on the site of the former Winnetka Learning Center in New Hope are ready to proceed.

Dubbed Parkview, the 17-acre subdivision would be New Hope's first major housing development since at least the 1980s.

Coon Rapids-based Centra Homes in late 2013 won the bidding for the now-vacant former school site by offering $1.05 million and proposing a mix of detached, single-family townhouses and traditional homes. The builder initially aimed to start construction in spring 2014, but it then discovered an area of poor soil conditions along the site's northern edge.

In response, the plans were altered to include an oversized, city-maintained stormwater holding pond and adjacent filtration basin, which will serve not only the new subdivision but some of the surrounding areas to the north as well.

The layout of the lots within the site were also reconfigured to accommodate the new features. Centra's updated plans call for a total of 60 homes, including 31 detached townhouses platted onto 40-foot-wide lots and 29 traditional homes on 65-foot-wide lots.

The project took a key step forward this month when the New Hope Planning Commission unanimously approved its revised preliminary plat as well as the necessary rezonings and conditional use permit.

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