Minneapolis is moving to close one of the longest-standing gaps in its celebrated park system, with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) now seeking contractors to build out the Minnehaha Creek Regional Trail, a designated route within the Twin Cities' regional parks network.
The creek itself has always been there. Running roughly 22 miles from Lake Minnetonka through south Minneapolis before tumbling over Minnehaha Falls and emptying into the Mississippi River, it was part of the original vision that landscape architect Horace Cleveland sketched out for Minneapolis's park system in the 1880s. That vision eventually became the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, a 50-plus-mile chain of parkways and trails that has helped earn Minneapolis's park system a reputation as one of the best in the country. Minnehaha Creek has remained an incomplete link in that chain.
As we've previously reported, this project has been years in the making. The funding backbone comes from Minnesota's Parks and Trails Legacy Fund, created after voters passed a constitutional sales tax increase in 2008 specifically to support parks and conservation. That steady revenue stream has allowed the MPRB and the Metropolitan Council, which coordinates the regional trail system, to advance projects that local budgets alone couldn't sustain.
The trail also fits squarely into Minneapolis's 2040 Comprehensive Plan and its Transportation Action Plan, which call for tripling the share of trips made by walking and biking by 2030. A connected trail along Minnehaha Creek would give south Minneapolis residents a low-stress route for both recreation and commuting.
The project does come with an equity question the park board will need to answer. The creek corridor runs through Fulton, Lynnhurst, Kingfield, Standish and Longfellow, neighborhoods that skew wealthier and whiter than much of Minneapolis. Since 2020, the MPRB has faced sustained pressure to direct more capital investment toward historically underserved communities on the north side, and its own 2016 Neighborhood Park Plan established a formula intended to do exactly that. A major regional trail investment in south Minneapolis will test how seriously the board applies those commitments alongside legacy infrastructure projects.
The solicitation was posted Oct. 15. Key details including the construction estimate, specific trail segments and project timeline were not included in the public posting; the full bid documents, available through the city's procurement portal, will contain those specifics. A contract award would set the construction clock running on a trail Minneapolitans have been waiting more than a century for.
