Eden Prairie greenlights high-end houses, townhomes with 13 acres of open space

One of Eden Prairie’s last big parcels of land available for residential development will hold high-end homes but also a substantial chunk of preserved open space, according to a plan OK’d Tuesday, Jan. 21, by the City Council.

Approved on a 4-0 vote was Marshall Gardens, a proposal by Lake West Development, LLC to build 15 small-lot, single-family homes and 100 townhomes, all on 32 acres along Dell Road, which is known as the Marshall family farm.

The property will also include a one-acre community garden that is an ode to the property’s history and about 13 acres of bluff land near Riley Creek that will be deeded to the city as public open space.

The project has been in the pipeline since at least February 2024, when the developer met informally with City Council members to broach the plan, a departure from the city’s long-range Guide Plan, which projected only single-family homes to match nearby neighborhoods.

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The open space and the plan’s sustainability features – including solar panels on the four large townhome buildings – were seen by the council as attractive trade-offs to more single-family homes. Marshall Gardens will also target an aging, empty-nester market that is growing in Eden Prairie, although its homes may be out of reach for many long-term residents, with single-family homes ranging from about $1.1 million to $1.5 million and townhomes ranging from $850,000 to $1.2 million, according to the developer.

There have been some changes to the project along the way. Following November’s hearing before the Eden Praire Planning Commission, the developer responded to resident concerns by reducing a planned community garden from almost 2.5 acres to 1 acre so that proposed single-family homes bordering established neighborhoods to the north can be spread farther apart to create more separation and landscaping. Some of the homes have also been turned slightly, and a heavily landscaped outlot has been established in the northeast corner to ease the transition between the old and new neighborhoods.

During Tuesday’s public hearing, Richard Koppy of 9872 Crestwood Terrace called the plan “reasonable” but also quite dense in the number of homes. He challenged city officials to monitor and address any traffic speed issues that might arise on Dell Road or Crestwood Terrace as a result of the project.

“This is the last place to develop in this neighborhood, so we want to make it right,” he said.

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Cindy Leverenz, 9703 Geisler Road, questioned the wisdom of putting that many homes on a site so far away from basic services like shopping. “It’s density and traffic,” she said. “Those are my concerns. They have been the whole time. It just doesn’t seem appropriate to me for that area of Eden Prairie.”

But, given assurances by city staff that Dell Road and area intersections will easily accommodate the development and its traffic, council members said they were satisfied with the plan.

“There’s been more than typical listening by the developer. Probably a lot more than I’ve ever heard before, looking at all the possibilities and bringing that in” to the plan, said Council Member Kathy Nelson. “So, I am comfortable with this, especially with the last level of changes to make things better for the neighbors.

“I’m just glad there was so much consideration over the last year, year and a half to get as much as we could,” she added.

The developer said construction would probably begin this summer.