Eden Prairie council approves Marshall Gardens development, clearing way for 100-unit condo-style buildings and 15 single-family lots

The Eden Prairie City Council on Jan. 21 approved a multi-part application to redevelop a roughly 32-acre site at 9905 Dell Road into 15 single-family homes and a 100-unit multifamily project, providing for a community garden, stormwater ponds and about 13 acres of permanently preserved bluff and open space.

The decision came after staff presentations, developer remarks and a public hearing that drew several neighbors who raised concerns about traffic, density and wildfire risk. The council voted to adopt guide-plan and zoning changes, approve a PUD concept and preliminary plat, and direct staff to prepare a development agreement; the motion passed unanimously by the four council members present, with one member absent.

City staff said the current plan divides the site with a public street extension, Crestwood Terrace, containing 15 single-family lots on the north side and four stacked "condo flat" buildings on the south side totaling 100 ownership units. Julie Robert, Community Development Director, and Robert, the cityPublic Works Director, summarized design changes made after Planning Commission review intended to increase buffering and reduce impacts on adjacent homes.

"Those most notable changes are those single family homes on the north side shifting more to the west," Robert said, describing added outlots, landscaping and a reduction in lot-area waivers that the commission had flagged. He added that the community garden was reduced substantially and reconfigured as private to the development to avoid additional outside traffic and parking demands.

Lake West Development representatives said they shifted the villa lots to increase separation from existing homes, reduced the community garden from about 2.5 acres to under one acre and would deed roughly 13 acres of bluffs to the city. Kelsey Thompson, Lake West Development, told the council, "It's just been such a breath of fresh air working with this staff." Cody Dietrich, also with Lake West, described design features including solar panels, EV-ready garage stalls and a mix of one-story villas and "condo flats." Dietrich estimated the rooftop solar would "supply probably about half of the common areas," though he called the figure preliminary.

Public commenters pressed the council on traffic and density. "This project nationally is called the tsunami building project," said resident Catherine Ellenbecker, who expressed concern that clustered development increases fire risk and that she believed local emergency staffing and equipment are insufficient. Other neighbors asked the developer to adjust vehicle access and to preserve the area's character.

Robert, the Public Works Director, presented the traffic analysis, saying the new development would generate "just under 900 trips in and out of the site over the course of a 24 hour period." He described how those trips would distribute across Dell Road, Crestwood Terrace and nearby streets and concluded that, under a 2027 build scenario that accounts for normal growth and planned Dell Road improvements, intersection levels of service would remain at "B or better" with modest increases in queue lengths.

Council members acknowledged neighbors' concerns about speed, traffic routing and emergency response while stressing the trade-offs that informed the citystaff and council reviews: the project consolidates a portion of density to preserve the bluff, adds green space for the public and includes design changes requested by residents and the Planning Commission. Council members and staff noted the city will continue to monitor traffic and consider mitigation tools such as dynamic speed-display signs and stop-control evaluations after the road improvements and occupancy.

The councilmotion approved the following elements: a guide-plan change for roughly 9.78 acres to medium-density residential and 12.78 acres to parks and open space; a planned-unit development (PUD) concept review and first reading of the PUD ordinance on 8.03 acres; zoning changes from rural to R1-9.5 (8.03 acres), rural to RM-2.5 (9.78 acres) and rural to parks and open space (12.78 acres); a preliminary plat dividing one parcel into 16 lots and five outlots on 32.11 acres; and support for park-dedication fees. The council also directed staff to prepare a development agreement incorporating staff and commission recommendations. The motion passed with four affirmative votes and one absence.

What happens next

Staff will draft the development agreement incorporating the conditions the council and Planning Commission recommended. The developer said, if approvals proceed smoothly, construction could begin in summer 2025. The city will continue traffic counts and coordinate Dell Road improvements tied to right-of-way work associated with the project.

The councilapproval does not finalize building permits, infrastructure sequencing or private sales; those remain subject to the terms of the forthcoming development agreement, final engineering, permitting and private-market decisions.