Plymouth-based Roers Cos. has closed on the land it needs for a planned 190-unit apartment project in Lake Elmo and is gearing up for a potential June groundbreaking for the development, known as The Dorian.
Roers Lake Elmo Apartments LLC paid $4 million for the 14-acre site at 140 Julia Ave. N., according to a certificate of real estate value made public last week. The sale works out to $285,714 per acre.
DPS-Lake Elmo LLC of Wayzata sold the land, which is in the northwest corner of Hudson Boulevard North and Julia Avenue North. The Lake Elmo City Council “conditionally approved” a series of requests to rezone and re-guide the unaddressed property, according to city documents.
In an email to Finance & Commerce, Roers confirmed the land purchase.
“We like the location’s visibility and proximity to retail and job centers. The Roers Cos. team plans to break ground on The Dorian later this summer,” Logan Schmidt, Roers development partner, said in the email.
Jason Stopa, Lake Elmo’s community development director, said in an email that the project has been approved.
“The plat should have been recorded with the county,” he added. “As for next steps, they will need to provide proof of recording, schedule a preconstruction meeting, and then they can receive a building permit. It’s possible they will have a permit by the end of next week.”
A final plat and development agreement for the site was approved in 2022, but the original developer, Schafer Richardson, “decided not to move ahead with the project,” according to city documents. “In the time since, Roers Cos. … has acquired the project from the former developer.”
Lake Elmo saw an uptick in multifamily construction in 2024 and that trend is expected to continue this year.
City documents reveal that Lake Elmo added 146 new multifamily units in 2024, up from 75 the previous year. The city expects to see another 238 units in 2025, along with 118 new single-family homes.
Stopa said the city has two additional multifamily projects in the pipeline: Inwood 8th Addition and Limerick.
“Inwood 8th Addition is a 123-unit apartment near Fifth Street and Inwood Avenue. It’s in the preliminary plat stage. Limerick has 271 units of apartments and a 120-unit senior living building. It is near Hudson Boulevard and Manning Avenue. The concept plan has been approved, and the environment assessment worksheet is being reviewed,” he added.
For its part, Roers has been active in the east metro in recent years.
In January 2023, in neighboring Oakdale, the developer broke ground on the 190-unit Espen Residences in Oakdale, the company’s first project with its new in-house general contracting group, RGC.
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