A proposed senior living facility that would be Excelsior's first four-story building fell short of city approval Monday, largely owing to concerns that it wouldn't fit with the Lake Minnetonka town's quaint character.

The City Council voted 3-2 to approve the Waters of Excelsior, but the project failed because it needed four votes to pass.

The Waters Senior Living Management LLC, a Minnetonka-based company, isn't giving up on Excelsior. Company officials asked to return in mid-July with revised drawings for a 3½-story building that has two three-story wings and a four-story center.

Mayor Mark Gaylord and Council Members John Beattie and Greg Miller voted for the project, while members Jennifer Caron and Todd Carlson voted against it.

Supporters say the facility would help keep seniors in the community and increase property taxes on the 1.8-acre site, which now holds a closed restaurant and a 1960s-era apartment building near Hwy. 7 and Water Street.

But the Planning Commission rejected the plans, citing the building's scale and mass.

The project would require the city to annex 1.3 acres of Shorewood, because the development would straddle the Excelsior-Shorewood border.

The two cities would split the site's property taxes, with Shorewood getting 60 percent and Excelsior 40 percent.

KELLY SMITH