Type: Retail Size: 6,172 square feet

Parking: 35 spaces Developer: Welsh Construction

Details: A vacant out-lot at Maple Grove's Fountains of Arbor Lakes retail center, originally envisioned for a 14,000-square-foot drugstore, would instead become a Great Southern Bank branch under a proposal that has received a preliminary go-ahead from city officials.

The city's planning commission this week approved a request from Welsh Construction on behalf of the Springfield, Mo.-based bank to alter the retail center's planned unit development allowing for the switch from a drugstore to a bank.

The panel also granted the thumbs-up on the development-stage plans for the building, which would feature what city planners called "an attractive combination" of brick, stone, glass, exterior insulation siding and a simulated slate shingle roof.

Great Southern Bank, founded in 1923, has $4 billion in assets with 107 branches in Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, as well as four branches in the Twin Cities area, according to its website.

Mike Schraad, VP of operations with Welsh Construction, told the commission that the bank is leasing space for all of its current local branches, and said the Maple Grove bank would be the first that Great Southern has owned in this market.

"They're looking at doing other facilities in the metro area," he added.

Should the project secure final approvals, it's slated to begin construction in spring with a late September-early October opening, Schraad said.

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