A pair of proposed developments – an assisted-living facility and a pet hospital – will be considered by the Eden Prairie City Council at its Tuesday, June 13, meeting. Both projects were endorsed in May by the city’s planning commission. One is a two-phase project called Baker Road Assisted Living, where an office building exists at 6216 Baker Road, which is across Baker Road from the Life Time Crosstown facility and immediately south of Crosstown Highway 62 on EP’s northern boundary. A first phase involves renovating an existing two-story, 16,309-square-foot office building into 24 assisted-living units with 31 beds. A…
Author: Mark Weber
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Mark Weber
Mark joined the Eden Prairie News as a reporter in 1979, just five years after its start, and spent the next 34 years in various roles including editor and publisher, as well as general manager of the parent company, Southwest Newspapers. He also published Edible Twin Cities magazine. His encore career was serving the nonprofit Eden Prairie Community Foundation as executive director. Mark is now retired. He and his wife, Roma, have two grown sons and a daughter-in-law, as well as a grandson. They have lived in Eden Prairie since 1984. "I hope the many words I have typed over the years have helped people understand the world around them."
Buckthorn is the persistent, fast-spreading, nuisance shrub that has sparked an Eden Prairie movement. Like that neighbor from hell who tinkers with motors and whose lawn just keeps sprouting dilapidated car hulls and rusted lawnmowers – that’s buckthorn. Unless there’s an intervention, it’s just going to get worse, choking out anything of beauty. But Glenn Olson, a 48-year Eden Prairie resident, is a buckthorn super slayer and so is Bridget Beyer, who moved here just two years ago from Duluth. Together they are leading a new Friends of Eden Prairie Parks group that sees buckthorn, garlic mustard, and other non-native…
Local officials may be at least halfway to solving a major erosion of the steep, fragile bluffs along the Minnesota River in southeastern Eden Prairie. Included in the $2.6 billion infrastructure bill passed by the Minnesota Legislature on Monday, May 22, is $2.75 million to the Lower Minnesota River Watershed District (LMRWD). The funding will help the watershed district correct a 60-foot-high, 700-foot-long gouge in the bluffs and stabilize the banks where the river makes a sharp bend below Riverview Road, east of Flying Cloud Landfill. But, since that’s only 50% of the estimated overall cost of the remedy, put…
An Eden Prairie office building said to be “underutilized” in the current soft market for office space would be transformed into an assisted-living facility for seniors under a plan endorsed Monday, May 22, by the city’s planning commission. Recommended unanimously for approval was a two-phase project called Baker Road Assisted Living, where an office building exists at 6216 Baker Road. It’s located across Baker Road from the Life Time Fitness Crosstown facility and immediately south of Crosstown Highway 62 on EP’s northern boundary. Why it matters: The Baker Road project would add to Eden Prairie’s complement of senior care facilities.…
A Bloomington veterinary clinic’s plan to build in and relocate to southeastern Eden Prairie has been approved by the city’s planning commission and is headed for city council review. Bush Lake Pet Hospital would anchor a new, two-tenant building along Hennepin Town Road near Pioneer Trail, north of the existing Kinderberry Hill Child Development Center. Why it matters: This would boost commercial development in what’s known as the Bluff Country neighborhood of southeastern Eden Prairie, where retail has been slow to arrive because of traffic issues and neighborhood concerns. For example, a plan for a Holiday service station with auto…
Eden Prairie residents keep giving high marks to their quality of life and to city-government services, even as communities across the country struggle with issues such as policing and affordable housing. In the City of Eden Prairie’s latest survey of residents, 92% of respondents rated the quality of life in EP as excellent or good, compared to 93% in 2020. That number has never been lower than 89% over the last decade. Why it matters: The community survey taken every two years by the City of Eden Prairie is one of the few instruments that measure what residents like and…
SouthWest Transit’s lengthy search for a new leader has culminated in the hiring of Erik Hansen. Hansen, age 52, will start as CEO on June 5. He replaces Len Simich, who had served as SouthWest Transit’s CEO since 1997. Simich informed the commission of his retirement plans in 2021, and the agency subsequently hired one search firm, then another after being turned down by two CEO finalists. Hansen brings local-government management and business-management experience to SouthWest Transit, most recently as the city administrator of Tracy, a community of about 2,100 residents in southwestern Minnesota. Prior to being hired by the…
The partially-built grocery store thought to be an Amazon Fresh is instead being marketed for another tenant, making it increasingly doubtful the e-commerce giant will ever have a brick-and-mortar grocery presence in Eden Prairie. Why it matters: A grocery store southwest of the intersection of Flying Cloud and Prairie Center drives would have put food within close walking distance of many apartment residents, including senior citizens in Flagstone and people of all ages who will live in the under-construction Paravel Apartments. The unfinished, 41,154-square-foot building is now listed by Mid-America Real Estate-Minnesota, LLC as available for sublease by a big-box…
Getting past the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly difficult for persons with intellectual disabilities, who are more at risk from COVID and have been more isolated as a result. That’s part of why the folks at Eden Prairie-based CHOICE, Inc., which provides jobs and enrichment programs for people with intellectual disabilities, are so grateful for a new grant from the Eden Prairie Community Foundation. The funding will allow CHOICE clients to partner with memory-care residents of Presbyterian Homes’ Flagstone community to create art under the direction of instructors from the Eden Prairie Art Center. “In stressful times, art has been…
Hennepin County District Court’s recent dismissal of a development-related lawsuit against the City of Eden Prairie is being appealed. In petitioning the Minnesota Court of Appeals for relief, plaintiffs EP Land, LLC and Auto Care World, LLC say the district court ruling on April 4 in the city’s favor failed to acknowledge that the development plan rejected by the city in 2021 proposed land uses that were permitted by city code. The plaintiffs had proposed to build a 24-hour, 16-pump Holiday service station and 10-bay Auto Care World auto-repair business on four acres near the intersection of County Road 1…