Developer CSM Corp. has been given the go-ahead from Eagan officials to redevelop the former Lockheed Martin site into an urban-style shopping district with a planned grocery store, sit-down restaurants and medical offices.

Plans the Eagan City Council unanimously approved Tuesday include 387,000 square feet of retail and a 47,000-square-foot medical office building on the 47-acre site at Yankee Doodle and Pilot Knob roads, a prominent corner just west of Interstate 35E. The area east of the interstate already is heavily developed with retail.

The latest plans for the development, called Central Park Commons and nearly four years in the making, show a grocery store and fitness center on the southern end of the site. The medical building, a bank and four restaurants make up the northern portion of the property.

A call to CSM on Friday seeking specifics was not returned.

Minneapolis-based CSM bought the Lockheed Martin corporate office and laboratory site in 2011. The developer submitted two other plans to the city in 2012 and 2013 that were heavier on retail, but later withdrew them both.

The planned shopping center’s pedestrian-friendly design puts the buildings at the perimeter of the property, with storefronts facing up into the center of the site.

“It’s what we call an inward center,” John Johannson, CSM’s development agent on the project, told council members and city staff before the vote.

Amplifying the design is a “village” setting in the middle of the property with six smaller-sized retail buildings, an outside plaza, seating and walking paths. A curved, landscaped road runs horizontally through the village area.

Limiting expanses of parking was another design goal, while still preserving the access and convenient parking that suburban shoppers expect, CSM said in its project narrative submitted to the city.

Sidewalks and multiple trail connections will be put at key pedestrian access points surrounding the site.

“There are myriad trail opportunities,” Johannson told the council and city staff. “There are myriad plaza and open-space seating opportunities built into the plan that frankly did not exist in the earliest iterations of the project. And that’s the direct result of the feedback from you.”

Jon Hohenstein, Eagan’s community development director, said the city’s comprehensive guide plan lays out expectations for the Central Commons area, including “things like an expectation of mixed use, pedestrian orientated gathering places, shared parking, minimizing large areas of parking. And each new plan CSM did get closer to the policy rules.”

The new shopping center will be situated about three miles northeast of Twin Cities Premium Outlets, a 409,000-square-foot 100-plus store outlet mall that opened in August in the Cedar Grove redevelopment area.

Hohenstein said that when plans were submitted for the outlet mall in 2012, Maxfield Research looked at its potential impact. The market research study concluded the mall would not compete directly with existing retail in the city or any new retail developments like the one green-lighted Tuesday, he said.

Workers have removed roughly 240 tons of asbestos from the vacant Lockheed Martin building, which was built in 1967. Demolition of the 620,000-square-foot building will begin in April or May.

The new shopping center could be open by the end of spring 2016.

Nick Ferraro can be reached at 651-228-2173. Follow him at twitter.com/NFerraroPiPress.