The entire building will be demolished. It has been a fixture in Richfield for a long time, so there has been some desire by Richfielders for the new development to give it a "shout out" (my clunky wording, not theirs).
Cornerstone, who recently finished Lyndale Plaza across the street, is working on this one as well. Now that Lakewinds Co-Op has entered the picture as a co-owner, the development scenario has changed. Cornerstone will develop the 6-story apartments and adjacent retail sites, along with the community amenities (trails, splash pool for the kiddies, open air market space, etc). The apartments, especially the townhome portion are going to have a great view of the lake.
Lakewinds Co-op will own their store and develop it as a separate piece from everything else. On the southern end of the Co-op parking lot, there will a pad site reserved for future development.
The piece I'm really excited about is the on-street parking on Lyndale. It will be a curb cut-out, rather than using the existing roadway, but I think it could have a real effect on slowing down traffic in the area and making it a little more pedestrian friendly. I'm pretty sure speed limits are 35MPH on most of the major roads in Richfield, and I'd like to see that brought down to 30MPH. There's really no reason that speed limits are 30MPH throughout Minneapolis, but jump to 35MPH or worse as soon as you hit Richfield.
The part I'm not thrilled about is all of the parking lot fronting the street. The NE portion of the development is shown as surface parking and mentions an "outdoor market" or something like that. I imagine it will be used as surface parking 95% of the time. I'm not sure why you wouldn't pull the apartment a little closer to the street, leaving room for more open space near the lake. I wish some of the Co-op parking was structured as well, to leave a little more room to develop street-facing retail or more apartments.
Check out how crazy this parcel is:
http://gis.co.hennepin.mn.us/property/m ... 2824110088