Hennepin Avenue Reopens After an 18-Month, $36 Million Reconstruction

Hennepin Avenue South, the main commercial street through Uptown and a primary route for Lowry Hill, the Wedge and the lakes neighborhoods, fully reopened to two-way traffic on Friday, Oct. 31, after a reconstruction that ran about 18 months and cost roughly $36 million. Work began in spring 2024 and was built in two phases, the first from Lake Street to 26th Street in 2024 and the second from 26th Street to Douglas Avenue in 2025.

It was the corridor's first major rebuild in more than 65 years. The roughly 1.4-mile stretch from Lake Street to Douglas Avenue was not simply repaved; it was redesigned from the curbs in, with the pavement reapportioned among people on foot, on bikes, on buses and in cars.

Mayor Jacob Frey marked the reopening with a promise to the businesses that endured it. "Uptown is coming back and you all are going to be a part of it," Frey said, calling the moment "a renaissance" for the district.

The design had a long, contested history before a single lane closed. Minneapolis Public Works released a recommended layout in December 2021, and the plan moved through council approval over the following year. The sharpest fight was over bus lanes: Public Works initially recommended full-time, dedicated transit lanes, then shifted to a part-time "dynamic" approach, and after a council fight and a mayoral veto, the project settled on lanes reserved for transit a minimum of six hours a day.

The rebuilt street includes wider, more consistent sidewalks, a two-way protected bikeway on the east side, part-time bus lanes, raised medians, and new transit stations built to serve the METRO E Line bus rapid transit route, which opened Dec. 6 and largely replaced Route 6. New signals, turn lanes and crossings round out the work, which went well below the surface to replace the roadway base and aging utilities.

The benefits came after real pain for the corridor's businesses. The owner of Autopia auto repair, Stan Pryor, said the construction cut his business by 60% and that the reopening came too late. "It will bring the traffic flow through, but again, most of the damage is done," he said. Mumtaz Osman, who has run Osman Cleaners on the corridor for 35 years, said the new one-lane-each-way layout and lost parking worried her. From 2023 to 2025, the city served 36 corridor businesses through its Business Technical Assistance Program.

Punch-list work and underground tasks such as sewer lining continued after the main reopening. Residents can follow updates through the city's Hennepin Ave S project page and report lingering issues, such as a missing sign or a drainage problem, through 311.