Minnetonka approves mid-rise near Ridgedale

The Ridgedale area is getting a new six-story, mid-rise building that will be tied for the city's most dense apartment building.

Last week, the City Council unanimously approved plans for the building, pegged as a precedent-setting project for a wave of redevelopment expected in the area over the next two decades, aiming to draw people for more than just shopping like St. Louis Park's West End and Edina's Southdale Center area.

The final approval comes after a split council denied plans in October, agreeing with residents that the six-story was too tall and dense for Minnetonka. But after scaled-back plans were submitted last week that reduced the height and density, the council passed the project despite some continued resident opposition.

"They're expecting us to be a leader in the area for new development," said Robb Bader of Bader Development, adding about the emotional response to the project: "We respect that. Neighborhoods and a developer aren't always going to agree, and we hope to come to a compromise."

The project, by Bader and Paster Properties, includes tearing down the three-story Highland Bank off Cartway Lane and Plymouth Road and building a six-story mid-rise with 115 apartments, underground and surface parking, and 15,600-square-feet of retail, including a bank, a coffee shop and a restaurant.

It's one of the first redevelopment projects for the Ridgedale area — part of a vision the city has for transforming the area between now and 2035 to include things like dense apartments, an upscale movie theater, restaurants, a parkway, and more trails and green spaces to draw people to the area and make it more walkable.

Renovations at the Ridgedale Center have put pressure on the area for redevelopment, the city's Community Development Director Julie Wischnack told the council, and it's up to the city to manage it and balance property owners' interests with residents'.

But that's exactly what some nearby residents don't want to see, calling the revised changes for the Highland Bank redevelopment "superficial."

"They dropped the height by 3 feet, which is the size of my 4-year-old daughter," said Patrick Magnusson, one of the nearby residents against it. "This was either the most tone-deaf response of all time … or they must have tipped the council members to be on their side. I feel like there was no good reason to approve it since it was essentially the same development they denied a month ago."

After the council voted 4-3 to reject the plans Oct. 27 — one council member said it looked like "a building on steroids" because of its height, footprint and density — developers revised plans Dec. 15. While the footprint and setbacks remained the same, a sidewalk was cut to increase green space and the height was dropped about three feet. The gross floor area was reduced by 961 square feet to 154,417-square-feet and the number of apartments was cut from 120 to 115 units.

"The vibrancy — or as someone said, the pizzazz — of Ridgedale is a critical success factor for the city going forward," council member Tony Wagner, who represents the ward where the project is, said at the meeting about plans fitting the city's vision and goals. " … This is a fundamental density question."

Only one other apartment building in Minnetonka — a 150-unit senior housing building — is as dense in terms of the number of units per acre.

After more than two hours, all seven council members voted for it. The four council members who initially voted against it — Bob Ellingson, Tim Bergstedt, Dick Allendorf and Brad Wiersum — said changes were insufficient, but softened the intensity of the building and met the city's vision for higher-density housing.

"This is the Ridgedale area — this is not a village … this is the downtown of Minnetonka but it's a suburban version," Ellingson said at the meeting. "Within the context of Ridgedale, maybe it's not that big."

Demolition and construction will start in spring 2015, Bader said, with apartments opening by summer 2016.

In January, the city will hold additional community meetings on the vision for the area. But residents like Kamel Aossey don't plan to attend, too frustrated by the process.

"They haven't included citizens from the beginning," he said. "I think they're going through the motions because we put a lot of pressure on them. It's a zero-sum game."

"This could be the last apartment building in the area because I think people will be so upset when they see how massive it is," Magnusson said. "We don't want to see this happen again. [Developers will] look at it and say, 'what's one more?' All of a sudden we lose the atmosphere … that made the Ridgedale area unique."