Type: Senior apartments

Addition size: About 120,000 square feet

Units: 100

Developer: Mesaba Capital Partners

Architect: RSP Architects

Details: The owner of the 263-unit Yorktown Continental senior apartments in Edina is floating plans to build a four-story second building on the property, creating an “aging-in-place” campus.

Under the proposal, Woodbury-based Mesaba Capital Partners would add 70 assisted living and 30 memory care units in a new building facing York Avenue, touting its ability to “activate” the streetscape and provide a more-urban feel in the northeastern corner of the city.

The new structure would be built in conjunction with a $17 million effort to rehab the existing 12-story independent living apartment tower, which when built in 1972 was Edina’s first subsidized housing facility.

Mesaba Senior Partner Della Kolpin told the Edina Planning Commission last month at a sketch review meeting that the new apartments would include 50 underground parking spaces as well as 223 surface spaces serving both buildings. About 10 percent of the new units would be reserved for low-income seniors.

Kolpin also said talks are underway with Metro Transit to provide a new bus stop serving Yorktown Continental, possibly with an indoor connection.

To proceed with the project, the city would have to grant it a density variance. The maximum allowed under Edina’s senior residential zoning is 30 units per acre — the new units would bump up the property’s total to 64 per acre.

 

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