TowerLight on Wooddale Avenue 3601 Wooddale Av. S., St. Louis Park

Type: Senior housing/retail Size: 115 units Cost: $24 million Developer: Greco Real Estate Development

Details: The major new senior housing development begun last year at the southeast corner of 36th Street and Wooddale Avenue S. in St. Louis Park is progressing ahead of schedule and has a new name.

The five-story building, once known as Wooddale Pointe, has been rechristened TowerLight on Wooddale Avenue in a nod to a tower-like, illuminated public sculpture to be unveiled in a new "pocket park" adjacent to the building, developer Greco Real Estate Development says.

The company also indicated construction on the 115-unit building with approximately 26,000 square feet of commercial, dining and other uses on the ground floor is ahead of schedule for a fall opening.

After a long wait to secure a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-backed mortgage -- and hundreds of thousands of dollars in government grants and local tax increment financing -- the project finally broke ground last August and is now progressing quickly, Greco President Arnie Gregory said.

"It's going to be managed by Ebenezer Management Services, and it will be a cutting-edge, 'age in place' seniors facility," he said.

Its design by Minneapolis-based Kaas Wilson Architects is vertically integrated to fit a compact, urban redevelopment site. The facility will offer senior apartments, assisted living, transitional care and memory care.

Residents of the 75 independent living units will have their own entrance and elevator, thus making it feel more like an apartment-living experience for them, Gregory said.

The development will also include 32 memory-care units for seniors with dementia-related illnesses as well as six "care suites" with service-intensive offerings.

TowerLight residents also won't have to switch rooms or floors should they seek higher levels of assistance as they age, Gregory added.

As for the sculpture, he said Greco and the city of St. Louis Park will split the cost of installing a unique artwork that references the city's nearby historic "Nordic Ware" grain silo -- recognized as the country's first tubular concrete silo, built in 1899.

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