Mount Development Plans to Build Senior Complex in Edina

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Mount Development's proposed assisted living building at 6500 France Ave. in Edina (view looking southwest from France Avenue) where a medical office building had been proposed.Mount Development, which for more than a year has tried to build a medical office building along Edina’s France Avenue, has radically shifted its plans. It now wants to build an assisted living complex instead.

Mount filed plans with the city on May 1 that superficially resemble those for the 102,000-square-foot office building that had been approved for the site, at 6500 France Ave. It’s the same height (62 feet) and style, but is intended for specialized senior services instead of physician offices.The current proposal includes 40 skilled nursing beds, 40 memory care rooms, 20 care suites and 109 independent/assisted living rooms. Ebenezer, a division of Fairview Health Services (Fairview Southdale Hospital sits just across France Avenue) will operate the complex.

Part of the project’s first floor will include a space with an outdoor terrace, a theater, meeting rooms and a bistro.

The Edina Planning Commission will review a sketch plan of the 6500 France Ave. project at its May 8 meeting. Click here to see the agenda and download a city memo regarding the project.

The development team that had pitched the office building in early 2012 is still intact. They are Mount Development’sStephen Michals, Aurora Investments’ Luigi Bernardi, Mark Rausch from Alliant Engineering and Ed Farr from Edward Farr Architects.

The developers already purchased the site and razed single-story office building that had been the home of the Milavetz Gallop & Milavetz law firm.

Mount could still develop the medical office building if its housing project isn’t approved, Michals said in an interview. The company switched to a senior care project because it fits the needs of the aging population in Edina.

Source: Business Journal