Safe to assume Opus is not planning any additional development on a portion of the parking lot at this time?
It would seem a no brainer to put an apartment building on the south end of the site. Here's what the property lines look like:
https://gis.hennepin.us/property/map/de ... 2924320004 There a lot of room. Any development could always include additional parking spots for office use, if even necessary. While on one hand this seems an odd location for an apartment building, SLP and GV are having no problem with luxury rentals filling up just 3/4-mile to the west. Everyone out here is driving anyways, I don't think anyone who's cool with living in this general area is going to be like "Nah, too far from West End". In theory, bikeable to the Bryn Mawr LRT stop (1.25 miles on the frontage road).
As far as opposition, you would have the shoreland overlay height limit to deal with, since the site is so close to Brownie and Cedar Lake. Single family residents to the west would whine, but they're in Golden Valley and I don't think even Lisa Goodman would give a rip about what non-constituents have to say
P.S. France Ave should be extended down through this site and Cedar Lake Road should be extended through the JCC property to connect at the border of Mpls/GV/SLP