Venue - Project Narrative FinalPage | 1
Venue
525 W. 78th Street
Site Plan Review Narrative
May 19, 2017
Introduction
United Properties and Roers Investments is pleased to present a mixed‐use redevelopment
opportunity in downtown Chanhassen that will include 134 market‐rate apartment units and a
19,000 sf Aldi grocery store. The address for the proposed redevelopment is 525 West 78th
Street and is bordered by the Chanhassen Movie Theater and Country Inn & Suites to the west,
the Chanhassen Dinner Theater to the East, and the SW Metro Park & Ride to the south. This
location is very appealing for people seeking to live in Chanhassen MN that desire close
proximity to Chanhassen’s substantial arts, entertainment, outdoor, civic, and retail offering
while having immediate access to public transit as well has highway 5. The site is approximately
4 acres and currently contains a partially occupied multi‐tenant retail building commonly
known as the Frontier Building.
Site Redevelopment
The site’s redevelopment will include demolition of the existing Frontier Building and
construction of a new 192,000 sf mixed use building. Due to the existing shared parking and
access easements on the site it is necessary to construct any new building in the same footprint
as the existing Frontier Building. This space constraint posed a significant challenge to our
design effort which was aimed at maximizing the sites use with a high floor to area ratio (aka:
high site density) while offering an excellent place to live along with a new grocery offering to
the downtown Chanhassen marketplace. Through several months of design effort we have
established a design that accepts the sites constraints and meets the design objectives.
Site Uses
The 19,000 sf Aldi grocery store is an ideal size to coexist with a market‐rate apartment
building. This compatibility allows the stores primary customer entrance to face W. 78th street
but also affords space for the apartment building to have a prominent W. 78th street entrance
that will include the leasing office for prospective tenants. The Aldi customer parking needs will
be met with the northern surface parking lot along W. 78th while the primary residential parking
needs will be met by the southern surface parking lot and the 134 stall enclosed and climate
controlled parking garage.
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Aldi is a leading global supermarket chain with over 10,000 stores in 18 countries. Aldi stores
focus on a select assortment of essentials or “must haves” and offer many name brands as well
as brands that are unique to Aldi. Customers utilize their own reusable grocery bags, and
shopping carts are kept in one convenient location as opposed utilizing eco‐unfriendly bags and
parking lot cart corrals that waste a lot of space and often give a parking lot a disorganized
appearance. Aldi’s conservative approach allows them to deliver and maintain a quality store
and shopping experience. This conservative approach also allows Aldi to offer a high quality
product at a lower price than their competitors which will provide the Chanhassen shopper a
new alternative.
Building Design
The building is designed as a composition of two programmatic functions: retail and residential.
The retail portion is a single story volume lined on two sides with an L shaped residential
building. This configuration allows the residential program to provide active facades to what
would otherwise be blank walls. The residential portion is further articulated by providing for
different heights between the two wings. The south wing is six stories while the wing to the
east of Aldi is stepped down to five stories; this arrangement provides for a lower scale along
West 78th street stepping the scale up towards the middle of the site. Where the two wings
come together, the massing is broken down further with a material change and two deep
reveals at the south and east façade respectively. Finally, each of the two residential entries is
identified by a vertical element with a sloping roof which works in conjunction with the sloping
cornice over Aldi’s entry to establish a consistent language of forms around the building.
The material palette is derived from the immediate site context and the larger context of
Chanhassen and applied to provide an intentional distinction between the forms described
above while maintaining a cohesive design.
The material palette for the entire project consists of three materials: brick, metal, and fiber
cement. These materials change color or texture as appropriate to help define the massing and
visual impact of the building. The modular lite tan brick (similar to the Chanhassen Library) is
used to establish a base to the residential building and takes on a larger role on the Aldi
facades. The dark brown brick (derived from the adjacent parking garage) is used to call
attention to areas of entry in the residential portion of the project as well as the mass that joins
the two residential wings together which is also immediately adjacent to the parking garage.
The metal accents (cornices, balconies, guard rails, etc.) located on the residential wings are
also designed with a similar vocabulary and color as the adjacent parking garage.
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The rich brown wood grain fiber cement used on the north façade of Aldi and at the residential
entry vestibule pays homage to the weathered wood elements of the the Chanhassen Dinner
Theater to the east. This material reappears as an accent on the residential wings in various
places. The residential wings are each clad with fiber cement but distinguished from each other
by color and pattern. The higher wing is a terracotta color (derived from the brick color at St.
Hubert’s Church) while the lower residential wing is a dark grey color which provides an
appealing contrast to the lite tan brick base.
At both residential entry elements and the top floor of the mass that joins the two wings, a
white metal panel is used with random width vertical reveals. At the Aldi entry a silver metal
panel with reveals (both horizontal and vertical) is used. The distinction of color and texture
between the metal panels is intentional to provide a separate identity for the residential entry
and the retail entry.
Public Benefits
In addition to being a great place to live and shop the redevelopment will provide a very visible
and high quality building next to the Landmark Chanhassen Dinner Theater. The six story
building will be visible from highway 5 and help to further establish downtown Chanhassen as a
place to be and live. The 134 residential units will contain a mix of 1, 2, and 3 bedrooms. A
resident population of 250 is likely for a building of this size. Our market study of the area
shows strong demand from the “empty‐nester” (55+) and millennial demographic. We
anticipate that our residents will not only be frequent customers of the grocery store at their
doorstep but customers throughout downtown Chanhassen. The location will offer our
residents the convenience to walk or bike throughout Chanhassen if they choose to leave their
vehicle in the garage. The walkability of this site will increase pedestrian presence and activity
throughout downtown Chanhassen.
Another public benefit is the strength and stability of the Aldi grocery chain. There is little
worse for the vibrancy of an area than closed businesses and storefronts. A closed business at
the base of an apartment building would have a very negative impact on residential leasing and
vacancy. Aldi Inc. is one of the world’s largest privately owned companies. Their business
model combined with their outstanding and virtually unmatched credit provides great certainty
that an Aldi store within our proposed redevelopment will remain open and thriving for many,
many years.
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Conclusion
We are excited to present a redevelopment opportunity that we can deliver and will make a
positive impact on the community. If City support is received, we are prepared and ready to
begin the next phase of the redevelopment effort. We truly believe that this redevelopment
will be a great addition to downtown Chanhassen and is the right use for this location.