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OAKGREEN COMMONS OF ST. CROIX VALLEY

NW. corner, Oakgreen Avenue and 58th Street, Oak Park Heights

Type: Senior housing rentals

Units: 120

Cost: $18 million

Developer: Ancho Bay Pro Inc., Stillwater

Management: Southview Senior Living

Contractor: Stonebridge Cos.

Details: A new senior housing rental project along Washington County's fast-growing Hwy. 36 corridor is nearing completion.

Oakgreen Commons of St. Croix Valley, a 120-unit project co-owned by Stillwater developer Tim Nolde's Ancho Bay Pro Inc. and West St. Paul-based Southview Senior Living, is aiming for a Sept. 1 opening, Nolde said.

Oakgreen Commons will be a 107,000-square-foot, four-story building with 29 independent living units, 64 units of assisted living and 27 "memory care" apartments for seniors with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

It will have a common entrance; the units are individually heated and cooled. It also boasts individual patios, a beauty salon, on-site dining, a library/media center, community room, exercise facility, a 29-space outdoor parking lot and a heated underground garage with 29 more spaces.

The project was financed in part through $14.6 million in Minnesota senior housing revenue bonds floated by the city of Oak Park Heights and lent to the developers, as well as $1.2 million in tax increment financing.

Due to the public financing element, Oakgreen is required to set aside at least 24 units for affordable housing reserved for tenants whose incomes don't exceed 50 percent of the median in the surrounding area.

The project is adjacent to the Oak Park Commons retail center, a 200,000-square-foot shopping district, which is anchored by a Lowe's home improvement store. This spring the district saw the opening of a new Aldi's grocery and a White Castle hamburger restaurant.

It's also just a few blocks from another senior housing development -- Presbyterian Homes' Boutwells Landing. Nolde, however, said the Stillwater-area market is big enough for both of them.

"The demographics say there's a big need for senior housing, and there will be an even bigger need three years from now," he said. "Southview Senior Living says it's the best building they've ever preleased. They've got 20 reservations without even having to show the units."

DON JACOBSON

Don Jacobson, a freelance writer based in St. Paul, can be contacted at hotproperty.startribune@gmail.com.