The City of Minneapolis chose four Open Streets locations across Minneapolis for its 2025 season which runs Aug. 2 through Sept. 20. This is the second year the City has organized the Open Streets events, which clears an otherwise busy street of vehicles and opens it up to pedestrians and bicyclists for a few hours on a weekend afternoon.

The City selected Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis, Cedar Avenue on the West Bank, West Broadway in North Minneapolis, and Hennepin Avenue in Uptown as its four locations for 2025.

The Hennepin Avenue Open Streets will stretch from 26th Street to 36th Street and be held on Sept. 20. The Uptown Association, which organized last year's Lyndale Avenue event, will host the Hennepin Avenue Open Streets. The business association emailed its members in January to reach out to City leaders to request they add Hennepin Avenue to Open Streets this year.

A list of the 2025 Open Street locations was presented to the City Council's Administration & Enterprise Oversight Committee for approval on Monday by the City’s Enterprise Event Manager Andrew Ballard.

Ballard told the committee it can cost up to $175,000 to run a single Open Streets event. Community organizations hosting Open Streets each raised $35,000 to $50,000 last year on top of the City’s $50,000 contribution.

Councilmember Jeremiah Ellison (Ward 5) questioned whether future Open Streets events may need more than $50,000 in funding from the City and suggested presenting a wider set of data that includes when Open Streets was organized by Our Streets. Ballard presented highlights from attendance in 2024–75,000 attendees, over 20 stages of live music, and 550 vendors across three Open Streets events.

Councilmember Katie Cashman (Ward 7) said she was looking forward to the Hennepin Avenue Open Streets event and thanked City staff for choosing that route for 2025.

“The visitors to this new stretch of Hennepin are really going to be able to experience the new streetscape,” Cashman said. “The bike lanes, the widened sidewalks, the trees, the planters, the medians. Everything we’ve done to make this area safer is going to be on display with this event.”

Councilmember Linea Palmisano (Ward 13) noted the loss of not having an Open Streets Lyndale Avenue this year, as it was the original route for Open Streets, organized originally by the Minneapolis Bike Coalition.

Palmisano said she also supported the Hennepin Avenue event and “any attention that we can bring to it.”

Ballard said it was a “difficult decision between the two” routes.

Our Streets, originally the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, stopped organizing Open Streets events in 2023 after the City denied the organization additional funding for planning the events. The City of Minneapolis took over organizing Open Streets in 2024.