Hempel Real Estate is doubling down on St. Louis Park’s West End, purchasing a building in the West End Office Park and sketching out plans to swap office space for senior housing and street-level retail at the busy west-metro node. The move, announced May 11, builds on a run of Hempel investments that aim to pull offices, shops and housing into a tighter urban-style cluster. The developer is also moving forward with a larger mixed-use project across from the Shops at West End.
As reported by the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal, Hempel purchased a building in the West End Office Park and is proposing to redevelop the parcel identified in planning materials as West End Two into roughly 150 senior independent-living units with about 5,500 square feet of ground-floor retail. The Business Journal noted that the purchase and proposed program are part of Hempel’s broader plan to convert underused office inventory in the area into housing and consumer-facing space.
Terasă Across The Street Is Already Under Way
City planning documents list Terasă at 5401 Gamble Drive as a six-story, 223-unit mixed-use building with roughly 21,000 square feet of commercial space, with demolition and early construction activity recorded in late 2025 and early 2026. According to the City of St. Louis Park project page, the development cleared key approvals last year, and Hempel’s press materials highlight a formal groundbreaking this spring.
Why The West End Keeps Drawing Conversions
Developers point to a dense mix of restaurants, entertainment and new apartments that keeps the West End busier than many suburban nodes, which makes it an easy sell for retail-anchored housing projects. Finance & Commerce reported that Hempel paid about $65 million for the Shops at West End in 2022 and has been layering office and residential projects in the area, a pattern that helps explain lenders’ appetite for adaptive reuses such as senior housing.
Permits, Timing And What To Watch Next
St. Louis Park records show the Terasă project cleared a planned-unit development and related approvals in early 2025 and that an environmental assessment worksheet was prepared for the West End Office Park redevelopment. The city’s construction timeline anticipates foundation and framing through 2026, with interior work and finishing into 2027–2028, while any senior-living conversion will need its own entitlements and neighborhood review before demolition or buildout can begin. Residents can expect more public filings and neighborhood meetings as Hempel finalizes designs and lines up operators for the senior units.
