United Health Corporate HQ - Eden Prairie

[benjbb114]

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/p ... l?page=all

[mplser]

this probably belongs in the suburbs section not the Minneapolis section

[Le Sueur]

Couple More details:
http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=152220105

Eden Prairie plans road work as business expands, adds jobs

Article by: TOM MEERSMAN
Star Tribune
May 22, 2012 - 12:08 PM

West Metro residents who drive along Shady Oak Road in Eden Prairie will be zig-zagging through detours and construction cones beginning this fall to accommodate the UnitedHealth Group's expansion to the area.

The road will be reconstructed and widened, with new turn lanes and traffic signals. A roundabout and a new bridge are also on the drawing board.

The $45 million in improvements over the next few years are needed mainly to accommodate extra traffic from an estimated 6,700 additional workers at UnitedHealth Group's future campus in Eden Prairie.

The giant health insurance firm plans to build four new buildings on about 72 acres that it owns, east of Shady Oak Road and between Highways 62 and 212.

The structures will provide 1.5 million square feet of office and represent a $250 million investment, city officials said.

"Over the last 25 years we've had some large projects, but this one has to be near the top in terms of its scale," said Eden Prairie economic development manager David Lindahl.

Previous mega-projects in the city have been built over a decade or more, he said, but UnitedHealth plans to build its new campus in the next four years.

The company broke ground on the first building a few weeks ago, and expects to stagger construction and build about one each year between now and 2016.

The first two buildings will be eight stories high, and will share an adjacent parking ramp with 2,600 stalls, according to plans.

Eden Prairie public works director Robert Ellis said that the improvements along Shady Oak Road are needed because traffic in the area is projected to double by 2030, with about half of it attributed to the company's expansion.

The road project, like the company's office construction, will occur in stages, he said.

The first phase will reconstruct about 3,000 feet of Shady Oak Road just south of Hwy. 62. The road will be widened so that it has two through lanes of traffic in each direction, separated by a median, Ellis said, with turn lanes to enter the campus at two intersections, and a double entry ramp for westbound Hwy. 62.

"All those improvements are needed to accommodate traffic coming to and from their site," Ellis said.

Because of that, he said, the company will pay for 94% of the initial $10.8 million in costs, with the city and county contributing about $700,000 for trails and other amenities.

New bridge

Drivers will see initial work this fall, Ellis said, as city and private utility crews relocate underground water, sewer, gas, electric and cable lines to make way for the wider road. The project will begin in October, he said, with completion expected by November 2013.

A second phase of construction will be more expensive and take longer, Ellis said. There is no specific timetable, but estimates are $31.7 million for additional work sometime between 2014 and 2017 on the rest of Shady Oak Road south to Hwy. 212, with a new bridge likely to be needed across the highway.

Because about 25% of the traffic at that highway interchange would come from UHG, the company has agreed to contribute $8.5 million.

"We are also dedicating 5 acres of the [campus] site to the proposed Southwest Corridor light rail station and setting aside land for conservation, all benefitting the community," said company spokesman Dimitri Senaratna.

Also, this recent SWLRT animation gives a decent view of what the completed campus may look like in relation to 212 and 62.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWqewQB- ... age#t=140s

[min-chi-cbus]

^I'm excited to see what (if anything) they do with the station near West Calhoun. There's a vacant parcel next to Calhoun Towers (because that project was a disaster, financially, when it was built in the 60's) and I personally think they could completely re-do the strip mall at Market & Lake. Being the ONLY station even remotely close to Lake Calhoun, I expect that stop to be very popular and I would like to see a lot of attention given to that station.

[PhilmerPhil]

The entire W Lake area is in need of a major overhaul. It has seen lots of urbanization in the past few years, but is still very pedestrian and bike unfriendly. A combination of some of the following--adding bike lanes, boulevards, on street parking, and reducing traffic lanes--would do the area wonders.

This area is pretty much an island of car centric development patterns surrounded by pedestrian and bike friendly amenities (Calhoun, Greenway, Uptown, and soon LRT.)

[benjbb114]

Metropolitan Mechanical Contractors, Inc. has posted this rendering on it's Facebook page:

[min-chi-cbus]

Metropolitan Mechanical Contractors, Inc. has posted this rendering on it's Facebook page:

Oh not this again! The 1st one was fine, the 2nd redundant.....3rd and 4th is just plain clownish! It'll look like "the projects" for office space....and maybe that's fitting.

[nasa35]

anyone know about this?

[min-chi-cbus]

UnitedHealth Group expansion: 1.5 million SF eventually will be on Shady Oak South of Hwy. 62.

[nasa35]

UnitedHealth Group expansion: 1.5 million SF eventually will be on Shady Oak South of Hwy. 62.

The work appears massive

What a tower they waste!

[min-chi-cbus]

UnitedHealth Group expansion: 1.5 million SF eventually will be on Shady Oak South of Hwy. 62.

The work appears massive

What a tower they waste!

Tell me about it!

[mattaudio]

Why are they so set on the burbs?

[min-chi-cbus]

Why are they so set on the burbs?

I never got a straight answer from them when I worked in the Real Estate dept.....all someone said is that was what their employees preferred, but I think it's actually what their top executives prefer. Besides, corporations like banks like to be near eachother and other vendors, so downtowns make more sense for those companies. UHG's real estate vendors (RSP Architects, Graybow, Steelcase, etc.) don't necessarily congregate downtown and neither do most of the hospitals they contact for insurance purposes, so maybe that was part of their decision? Plus, much less face-to-face time is necessary for UHG than a bank, let alone any company these days compared to even 10 years ago!

[lorwest]

The first tower is almost topped out.

ShadyOak.jpg

[nordeast homer]

Ist building is topped out now, 2nd building looks to be on the 3rd floor? The bones are starting to go up on the 3rd building too. Sorry I didn't take any pics, I was driving and didn't have time to pull over.

[beykite]

Drove by today and there was a huge fire burning in the back lot behind the construction of the 2 buildings. Not sure if it was a controlled burn or what but it was certainly causing traffic to back up a bit. I didn't see any fire trucks or emergency vehicles on site. Any one have any info?

[min-chi-cbus]

was it in that wooded area? might be leaf burning.....did it smell like bad weed?

[beykite]

was it in that wooded area? might be leaf burning.....did it smell like bad weed?

Well it certainly wasn't any Cali medical leaves. Drove by today and it looked like the back lot was cleared out. Must have been a controlled burn. Anyone have any info on when the work will start on the 10 and 15 story towers?

[mamundsen]

I think I drove past this today...

Can someone tell me if this is correct?

They have the original tower on the corner of Bren Rd and 169.

Then they built 2 more just south but still basically on 169.

Now they are building 4 (!) more over on 62 and Shady Oak.

This is an insane amount of office space. right?

[nordeast homer]

Not if you're talking 6700 new employees and 1.5 million square feet.
I think they have enough divisions that the campus-type development makes sense for them. They are building up enough space they may need to change the name of the city to United Health, MN.