Prolific real estate developer Kelly Doran, who built thousands of high-end apartments across Minnesota and beyond, died Thursday after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 66.

Since 2007, his name has been a fixture on construction sites across the Twin Cities. After working for more than 20 years with retail developer Robert Muir, Doran founded The Doran Cos. He started with retail development and management and moved on to apartments—first student housing, and then market-rate. Mill & Main was his first luxury project in the St. Anthony Main Historic District of Minneapolis. Over the years, he developed more than 3,700 units including The Reserve at Arbor Lakes in Maple Grove, The Moline in Hopkins and Lyra Apartments in Denver, Colorado.

In 2019, three years after surviving a previous bout with cancer, he sold off a majority stake in Doran Cos. and started the Doran Group with his oldest son Evan, who became president in 2022. The Eden Prairie-based firm has more than 130 employees and a real estate portfolio valued at more than $1 billion.

“We are all saddened by my dad’s passing,” Evan Doran said in a statement Thursday. “He was not only an exceptional businessman, but also a loving father, grandfather and friend. He built this company from the ground up and instilled in all who worked with him a commitment to excellence, integrity, and looking out for one another.”

Doran was inducted in the Minnesota Business Hall of Fame in 2019. Read TCB’s profile on Kelly Doran here. And see a video of career highlights from that event: