Business and housing development – Part 2: The Golden Triangle

What’s happening with that building? What’s going in there? What businesses are coming and going in EP? Those are the types of questions the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce seeks to answer with its Economic Development Bus Tour. The fifth annual iteration of the event was held this June, with David Lindahl, economic development manager for the City of Eden Prairie, acting as the tour emcee. Ride along on the tour in this three-part series to learn more. This is Part 2.

Viking Drive

As the bus hosting the Eden Prairie Chamber of Commerce‘s 2024 Economic Development Bus Tour traveled east on Viking Drive from Prairie Center Drive, it passed One Southwest Crossing, an office building that emcee David Lindahl, economic development manager for the City of Eden Prairie, referred to as “the diamond in the rough.”

Purchasers Eagle Ridge Partners “put about $6 million into renovating it and doing all the things that they thought would attract businesses, and they did,” Lindahl said. He said the building at 11095 Viking Drive is “about 95% leased, maybe even more, and it’s just doing very, very well. They’ve got coffee. They’ve got a nice open area with lots of places to meet.” 

Close by on Viking Drive, the former Lifetouch campus now has one building instead of its original two. After being purchased by Shutterfly, Lifetouch sold its real estate and planned to lease out one of the buildings, Lindahl said. However, because of limited parking due to the venue’s previous use as a showroom and studio, that would have required construction of additional parking, plus building renovations.

“So by taking that building down, they’ve created enough parking now,” Lindahl said. “Unfortunately, the value went from about $22 million to about $16 million, so we did lose taxable value there.” 

At the corner of Viking Drive and Washington Avenue sits Winter Park, the Minnesota Vikings’ former practice facility. Lindahl said the city has had several discussions with MV Ventures, the real estate development arm of the Wilf family, which owns the Vikings.​

“We’ve been talking to them for about four years now for redevelopment of this property,” Lindahl said. “We’ve seen multiple plans, mostly apartments with a little bit of commercial. They come in, they say, ‘We really want to get this done,’ and then they disappear and I don’t see them for a year. So, I think it’s going to happen, I just don’t know when.” 

Flying Cloud Drive, Golden Triangle LRT

The bus traveled further into the Golden Triangle, a roughly 1,000-acre triangular-shaped area bordered on the south by Interstate 494, on the east by U.S. Highway 169, and on the west by U.S. Highway 212. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Lindahl said, the industrial park area was home to about 25,000 jobs. Many of the buildings in the area, he said, date back to the late 1970s and 1980s.

Although the older buildings are still in demand, Lindahl said he thinks they will eventually be torn down and replaced with newer industrial buildings with 33-foot ceiling heights for “a lot more storage and warehouse.” 

The city, he said, has also intentionally tried to improve the infrastructure and capacity of the Golden Triangle area, including a reconstruction of the Shady Oak Road bridge over Highway 212 about 10 years ago, which added more traffic lanes. More recently, the Golden Triangle Light Rail Station has been constructed on West 70th Street, between Shady Oak Road and Flying Cloud Drive, a spot which Lindahl stated is “relatively in the middle of the park.”

The Golden Triangle LRT Station has been built as a park-and-ride station, with surface parking available. Lindahl responded to a bus tour participant’s question by stating that the city plans to add bike lanes to the adjacent section of West 70th Street, as well as trails on each side, as part of a larger effort to fix gaps in the trail network within the Golden Triangle.

Near the Golden Triangle LRT Station is 7075 Flying Cloud Drive. Lindahl said the building, which has previously housed Best Buy, Supervalu, and Bluestem Brands (Fingerhut), has now been purchased by Fargo-based Aldevron Corp., a biotech company that manufactures plasmid DNA.

“They have a plan, that’s been approved by the city, to completely reface the building, build a 100,000-square-foot addition, a clean room, which they’re saying will be a $150 million investment, and just a major reinvestment in that building for a lot of great jobs,” Lindahl said.

Also on Flying Cloud Drive in the Golden Triangle is the new construction of The Fox and The Grouse Apartments, a 425-unit complex being built in two phases and scheduled for completion in either 2024 or early 2025.

“Having residential, and people living next to the station, actually makes a lot of sense,” Lindahl said. “And, in theory, people could live here and work anywhere in this park. This is another new reinvestment driven in large part by the LRT investment.” 

Further up the road, at 6534 Flying Cloud Drive, is the former site of the Kabuki Restaurant. The newly constructed Crosstown Core Industrial Building now sits there. Lindahl cited the 65,000-square-foot, multi-tenant building with 32-foot ceilings as a good example of how newer industrial construction compares to the older buildings.

Shady Oak Road, City West LRT

In the midst of the Golden Triangle, southeast of the Flying Cloud Drive and Shady Oak Road intersection, sits another example of old architecture: the Dvorak barn and farm outbuildings on land that remains in the Dvorak family’s ownership. 

At the northern end of the Golden Triangle, just south of Minnesota Highway 62, aka the Crosstown, is the third Eden Prairie Light Rail Transit Station, the City West Station in the Optum campus area. Built east of Shady Oak Road, at the end of W. 62nd Street, on about five acres of land donated by Optum, the City West Station is the largest park-and-ride station in the city.

“One of the things we’re working on is putting a big sign up by (a) retaining wall that says ‘Eden Prairie,’ so when you come in on a train, you’ll see that you’re here, you’ve arrived in Eden Prairie,” Lindahl said. 

Currently in progress at the Optum campus at 11000 Optum Circle, just north of Shady Oak Road, is the move of parent company UnitedHealth Group’s corporate headquarters from Minnetonka to one of three office buildings. “Even when they make that move, which is happening right now, the buildings are still only 50 to 60% occupied, so there’s a lot of capacity,” Lindahl said. 

In response to a question about the fate of the Campiello building in the Shady Oak Center shopping center, also on Shady Oak Road, after the restaurant’s closure at the end of 2023, Lindahl said, “No news, other than it’s closed and we don’t know yet who will reoccupy the space. Hopefully, another restaurant.”

North of Highway 62, in the small section of the Opus Business Park located in Eden Prairie rather than Minnetonka, American Family Insurance is selling its property to a developer who will remove the existing office buildings in favor of constructing two large industrial buildings at about 185,000 square feet, Lindahl said.

“Those are in high demand right now, what they call flex industrial. So you’ll be seeing that pop in here soon.”

Question: What about the empty ADC building on Technology Drive?

Part of the reason for American Family Insurance’s sale, Lindahl said, was, “Like many other companies, they’re letting their people work from home; they don’t need the space.” That prompted a question from a bus tour participant on the status of the ADC building along Technology Drive.

Located west of Purgatory Creek Park and south of Technology Drive, across the street from St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the ADC property that had been leased to Optum is now vacant, Lindahl said, and, at 450,000 square feet, is the city’s largest vacancy.

“I talk to the listing broker about once every month, and it’s going very slowly,” he said. Although the building could be subdivided into two or three multiple businesses, “There’s just not a lot of demand for space, big blocks like that.” 

The city hopes that the building will eventually be reoccupied, Lindahl said, stating that “it’s got way too much value” to be repurposed for housing. He did note, however, that Optum owns 30 acres to the west of the building, adding, “That’s one of the last remaining large developable parcels in Eden Prairie.”

In Part 3, the Economic Development Bus Tour visits the western portion of Eden Prairie. Read Part 1, about the central portion of town, here.

Editor’s Note: David Lindahl is a member of Eden Prairie Local News’ board of directors.