Sherman Associates is charging ahead with a major transit‑adjacent project in St. Louis Park, breaking ground on a mixed‑use complex dubbed Beltline Station. Sitting beside the future Southwest LRT Beltline Boulevard stop, the development is set to combine hundreds of apartments with neighborhood retail and a sizable parking structure. Early foundations and framing are already under way, and the developer says the first building is slated to open this fall.
The price tag and that projected opening timeline were highlighted by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, which cast the project as one of the bigger bets moving forward even as apartment starts have cooled across the region.
City planning materials show Beltline Station stretches across roughly 6.6 acres at the southeast corner of County State Aid Highway 25 (Highway 7) and Beltline Boulevard, with four main components in the works. One is a seven‑story mixed‑use building that will hold about 152 market‑rate apartments over roughly 19,500 square feet of retail. A second is a four‑story affordable building with 82 units spread across multiple AMI tiers. A third is a five‑story market‑rate building with about 146 units. The fourth piece is an approximately 592‑stall parking ramp, reserving about 268 park‑and‑ride spaces for the future light‑rail station. All told, the phased plan delivers about 380 apartments, of which 82 (roughly 21%) are designated affordable. Building permits were approved in August 2025, and city updates show foundations and early framing in progress. City of St. Louis Park.
Public approvals and financing pieces
The Beltline blueprint cleared a multi‑year local approval process, including EDA agreements, tax‑increment financing districts and amended purchase contracts, which set the stage for early site work and financial closings. The Metropolitan Council later folded the St. Louis Park proposal into a slate of projects awarded Livable Communities funding in early 2026, part of a regional effort to help clean up and redevelop underused or contaminated parcels. Metropolitan Council.
Why Sherman is building now
Industry coverage and local reporting point out that many developers have hit the brakes this year as financing costs climb and apartment absorption slows. Sherman, however, is leaning on its usual formula of transit proximity and public incentives to help protect returns. Trade and project materials note the firm has a long track record with transit‑oriented, mixed‑income developments in the region, and Beltline Station follows that playbook while locking in early construction pricing and retail leasing opportunities. Sherman Associates.
Next up on the watch list: announcements for a retail anchor (city documents have pointed to a possible grocery), final leasing details for the neighborhood commercial spaces, and whether the construction phases stay on pace with the city’s timeline through late 2026 and into 2027. For now, Beltline Station is both an active construction site and a live test of whether big transit‑adjacent plays still pencil out in the current Twin Cities market. City of St. Louis Park.
