Housing and entertainment drive big Woodbury developments

As the first heavily built-up Minnesota community that drivers on Interstate 94 see after crossing the St. Croix River — and the last they encounter heading eastbound — Woodbury has for decades enjoyed higher visibility than many Twin Cities suburbs.  

It has changed a lot during that time, transforming from a patchily developed edge city with most activity fringing its two major highways into an economically diverse commercial and logistical hub home to nearly 80,000 people.  

Woodbury today is the state’s eighth largest city and one of its fastest growing. Its city council permitted 437 housing units last year — more than all but six other Minnesota cities, including much larger Minneapolis, St. Paul and Rochester.  

New housing planned or under construction here includes market-rate apartments, a “hard-to-develop” subsidized project bringing badly needed workforce housing, one of Minnesota’s few build-to-rent subdivisions, and numerous lower-density owner-occupant communities. Meanwhile, mixed-use development continues along the Gold Line bus rapid transit route in northwest Woodbury ahead of its planned opening next year as hundreds of thousands of square feet of new industrial space comes online farther east along I-94, and the city makes a once-in-a-generation investment in its water and public safety infrastructure. 

Woodbury’s growth is propelled by a “very sophisticated” city planning department that real estate developers enjoy working with, said Mario Cocchiarella, CEO and owner of Maplewood Development, Inc., which has five active projects totaling more than 1,000 units underway in town. 

“They do a good job of [guiding] development in an interconnected way that makes a lot of sense for people,” he said. 

Transit- and employment-oriented development along I-94 

Woodbury has two freeways: I-94, along its northern border, and the I-494 beltway, which arcs through its northwestern quadrant. Together, they serve the city’s two biggest mixed-use development areas, one in the northeastern corner of town and the other on the southeastern side of the I-94/I-494 interchange. 

The latter has the added advantage of being within easy reach of three planned Gold Line stations. Its centerpiece is the aptly named Gold Line Development, a 36-acre commercial and entertainment hub set to feature Minnesota’s second Topgolf and first Main Event locations when it opens sometime next year. A tenant has yet to be confirmed for a third commercial parcel and a “future development lot” on the site, both of which will require further city approvals, according to Woodbury’s development tracker. 

Gold Line Development likely won’t be the last major project within the three station areas. Woodbury sees the Gold Line’s “addition of all-day, bi-directional transit [as] a unique opportunity for the city to optimize the potential development or redevelopment through the master planning process,” according to an FAQ on the city website. Woodbury’s 2040 comprehensive plan envisions increasingly robust multimodal transportation options — walking, biking, and public transit — alongside traditional road infrastructure. 

The Gold Line won’t reach northeast Woodbury, but that hasn’t stopped housing and industrial developers from snapping up lots there. Some 800 housing units came online in this part of town last year, mostly along the I-94 corridor from the City Lakes mixed-use hub east to Manning Avenue, said Eric Searles, Woodbury assistant community development director. 

Nearly 500 more units — all qualifying as affordable housing — could be on the way in spite of a sharp decline in multifamily permitting across the Twin Cities. Earlier this year, Woodbury officials moved along Real Estate Equities’ 252-unit Karen Drive Apartments proposal for a parcel at the intersection of Hudson Road and Settlers Ridge Parkway and LS Black Development’s 237-unit Manning Avenue Apartments proposal near the intersection of Hudson Road and Manning Avenue. 

The projects will bolster the residential base in a still-developing area of Woodbury that has added more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing, light industrial, and warehouse space since 2022, including a new Amazon distribution center, Searles said. 

“[Northeast Woodbury] is a great location, with highway access that can’t be beaten,” Searles said. “Based on feedback from brokers, we expect the [new space] to lease up quickly.” 

Projects like Karen Drive and Manning Avenue Apartments are of special importance to the city right now, said Mike Hudson, developer and vice president at LS Black Development. 

“They’ve been looking for the right projects to get more affordable housing built in Woodbury,” Hudson said. 

LS Black closed on the Manning Avenue property in May, but the complex realities of affordable housing financing mean Manning Avenue Apartments likely won’t be ready for occupancy until 2027, Hudson said. Real Estate Equities senior development associate Blaine Barker told the Woodbury Planning Commission in April that REE hopes to close on financing for the Settlers Ridge project by the end of 2025. 

In the meantime, the 91-unit Meridian townhome development is expected to come online later this year at the CityPlace development between Hudson Road, Radio Drive, and I-94, Searles said. 

Single-family homes, and not just for owner-occupants 

With 20% to 30% of its land area earmarked for mainly low- to moderate-density residential development over the next 20 to 30 years, Woodbury is and will continue to be a hotbed for single-family housing construction. 

The factors driving single-family development in Woodbury are similar to those present in Rosemount, another fast-growing East Side suburb, Maplewood Development’s Cocchiarella said. 

Woodbury’s buildout is farther along, but “[both] offer the same kind of attractions with regards to recreational amenities, schools, proximity to employment, and sophisticated city planning,” he said.  

Other factors driving single-family construction in Woodbury aren’t unique to the city or even Minnesota, according to Cocchiarella. He cited the enduring work-from-home trend, which national developers have responded to with updated floor plans conducive to telecommuting; increasingly aggressive rate buy-downs that have reduced final costs for buyers despite still-high mortgage rates; a strong housing market characterized by “prices that are going nowhere but up,” driving buyers’ fear of missing out on homes in fast-growing communities; and menus of “highly amenitized features” allowing buyers to customize even lower-priced homes. 

“New construction used to be a hard sell because [buyers] didn’t really understand it,” he said. “But it’s a real attractive market right now.” 

In Woodbury, that market comes with a bit of a twist: a build-to-rent single-family segment that’s quite robust by Twin Cities standards. Most of the United States’ build-to-rent housing stock is in the eastern and central Sunbelt, according to a recent Northmarq report. 

The city has about 180 units of build-to-rent housing under construction set for delivery later this year, including Maplewood Development’s 89-unit Dundalk Green subdivision. When complete, Woodbury will have nearly 500 units of purpose-built single-family rental housing, second only to Maple Grove. 

Woodbury’s planning department has been supportive of build-to-rent proposals, a contrast with some other Twin Cities suburbs, Cocchiarella said.  

“There is an immediate rush to conclude that these are people who can’t afford to buy a house, or they’re transient, but that’s not what we find,” he said. Rather, he said, build-to-rent is a popular housing type for partial-year residents and those who simply don’t want the hassle of home maintenance. 

If they stick around long enough, residents of new communities like Dundalk Green will see — and benefit from — significant changes around town.  

Design work is underway for an approximately $60 million public safety center that will expand and “enhance” the city’s existing public safety facilities, Searles said. Construction is expected to begin this year and wrap up in 2027, Finance & Commerce reported in October. 

Also on the agenda is a $40 million renovation of Central Park that will enclose the 225-acre green space’s existing amphitheater, install a range of energy-efficient building upgrades, replace a popular playground, and add a 12,000-square-foot gathering space, among other improvements. The project should be complete next year, Searles said. 

Woodbury’s final big-ticket public works to-do is a 151,000-square-foot water treatment plant and related infrastructure to process 32 million gallons of groundwater daily. Expected to come online in 2028, the $400 million project — funded in part from an $850 million legal settlement between 3M and the state of Minnesota — will remove PFAS and other contaminants from Woodbury’s drinking water. 

Investments like these are essential as Woodbury adds an expected 20,000-plus residents over the next two decades and solidifies its status as a regional nexus, Searles said. 

“We see ourselves as the hub of the east metro, generating value for this part of the community,” he said.  

Related 

Year ahead looks bright for development in Plymouth 

Health care, housing drive development in Maple Grove 

Inside Rosemount’s housing and industrial building boom 

Shakopee features multiple development hot spots 

Blaine looking to seize opportunities for ambitious redevelopment