Hennepin Avenue Reopens After Two Years of Construction

A long-awaited reopening

The City of Minneapolis fully reconstructed roughly 1.4 miles of Hennepin Avenue South between Douglas Avenue and West Lake Street, a corridor that forms the western edge of the Wedge and the eastern flank of Lowry Hill. After about two years of phased work, the roadway reopened to two-way traffic late in 2025.

The project was an opportunity to update an aging street to current needs. The new multimodal design improves space for people walking, riding transit, biking and driving, with wider and more consistent sidewalks, bus lanes and a two-way protected bikeway on the east side of the avenue.

Officials had described the street as deteriorated and overdue for a full rebuild, not merely a resurfacing, which is why the work reached down to the utilities beneath the pavement.

Phased, and finally finished

The work was split into phases. The first ran from Lake Street north to 26th Street, and the second carried the rebuild from 26th Street up to Douglas Avenue. Crews returned for a final season of work before substantial completion, with remaining punch-list items and sewer lining trailing the reopening.

For neighborhood businesses that weathered the disruption, the reopening of the corridor to full traffic, transit and bike access was a milestone worth marking.

After 18 months of active construction and about $36 million, a remade Hennepin Avenue reopened at the end of October 2025.

Two years, two phases

The City of Minneapolis rebuilt Hennepin Avenue South between West Lake Street and Douglas Avenue in two phases — Phase 1, from Lake Street to 26th Street, finished in 2024, and Phase 2, from 26th Street up to Douglas Avenue at the foot of Lowry Hill, was substantially completed in 2025. The roughly $36 million project reopened at the end of October 2025 with bus-only lanes, a two-way off-street protected bikeway on the east side of the street, raised medians, wider and more consistent sidewalks, and new bus stations.

For the neighborhoods at the top of the corridor — the Wedge to the east of Hennepin and Lowry Hill to the west — the work meant two seasons of detours, dust and shifting bus stops. The payoff, city officials said at the late-October reopening, is a street rebuilt for transit riders, cyclists and pedestrians as much as for drivers.