Type: Rental apartments

Units: 280

Area: 21 acres

Developer: Continental Properties

Details: A 21-acre former sand and gravel mining area in Apple Valley that has been eyed for various building scenarios since the 1990s will finally be developed under plans recently approved by the City Council.

Continental Properties, in suburban Milwaukee, won the panel's OK last month for a gated apartment community to be spread out across 14 buildings of 20 units each within the big property, which combines the vacant sections of two other developments that were never fully built out.

The Springs at Apple Valley project spans leftover outlots from the Midtown Village complex, which was originally envisioned as a three-phase community of owner-occupied townhouses and condominiums, and the Fischer Market Place, where office-warehouse projects have been studied since 1998 but none ever built. The units will all be market-rate, with initial rents ranging from $920 per month for a studio apartment to $1,600 per month for a three-bedroom unit. City officials say the project answers a lack of newer market-rate product in the Dakota County suburb.

Continental said in a project narrative it expects to begin construction this summer. The project's 3,500-square-foot clubhouse is to be completed in winter 2015, with one new building delivered every three weeks thereafter until wrapping up the following winter.

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