Permit OK'd for Brookyn Park care center

Type: Medical

Size: 66,600 square feet

Beds: 50

Developer: Silver Oak Development

Architect: Pope Architects

Details: Plans for a 50-bed child and adolescent psychiatric care facility slated for Brooklyn Park's Astra Village area at Hwy. 610 and Zane Avenue N. have received the backing of the city's planning commission.

The panel at its Feb. 12 meeting approved a conditional-use permit request from IRET Properties, Silver Oak Development of Oakdale and PrairieCare Hospitals and Clinics to construct a two-story, 66,600-square-foot building in a part of the 158-acre Astra Village development originally envisioned for offices.

The PrairieCare team is negotiating with the landowners, the Seed family, to purchase 10 acres for the facility, while Ryan Companies has obtained an option to buy the rest of the Astra Village site and says it is eyeing proposals from a medical products firm and an office-warehouse business.

PrairieCare is proposing the new building to replace its current facility in Maple Grove, which has reached its capacity and is unsuitable for further expansion, John Ryan, the company's general counsel, told the commission. He said the Brooklyn Park site was ideal because of its easy access and pastoral setting, adding that the facility would have 280 employees with an average salary of $60,000.

PrairieCare is targeting a June groundbreaking with a September 2015 opening date for the $20 million effort.