Have you stopped walking past Queen Avenue on the Nine Mile Creek Trail and started turning back the way you came instead? If so, you're not avoiding a puddle. You're circling around a bridge that has been missing since the summer of 2025, and that gap is about to look small compared to what's coming.
The pedestrian bridge just north of Queen Avenue South was closed on July 8, 2025, after heavy rains exposed erosion and structural damage that Bloomington's park maintenance crew judged unsafe for foot traffic. By mid-November 2025, the city had removed it entirely rather than risk it collapsing into the creek. That's been the story residents have absorbed for over a year: one crossing out, a short walk around it, no big deal. What most people haven't clocked is that the missing bridge was never really about one bridge. It was the opening move in a rebuild that touches roughly half the entire corridor, and this fall is when the rest of it starts.
What's actually closed right now:
- The pedestrian bridge north of Queen Avenue South, gone since November 2025, with no replacement date until the corridor project's bridge work reaches that stretch
- Harrison Park's trail access point, closed for construction of the new Bloomington Veterans Memorial
- Moir Park's picnic shelters, unavailable for rental for all of summer 2026
- Additional trailheads throughout Moir and Central Park, scheduled to close in late summer or early fall 2026 as major renewal work begins
The Vote That Made This Fall's Closures Real
On August 3, 2026, the Bloomington City Council voted to award two contracts tied to this project: one for the Nine Mile Creek Corridor Renewal itself, another for a companion Lower Valley Management Plan covering invasive species removal and long-term habitat upkeep. The council had already backed the concept 7-0 back in January. August 3 was the meeting where the money actually got committed, after an hour of public comment.
Councilmember Lona Dallessandro framed her yes vote around climate resilience, arguing that a city known for its natural spaces has to actually fund the restoration that keeps them that way. Councilmember Danielle Robertson made a different but related case, noting that the longer the creek's restoration work is delayed, the more it costs. Neither framed this as routine trail maintenance, and the scope backs them up. The corridor being rebuilt runs from Moir Park down to the Minnesota River at the city's southern border, a 259-acre stretch. City plans call for restoring roughly 131 acres of woodland, wetland, and creek habitat across that corridor, and separately dedicate about 40 of the 259 acres specifically to oak savanna restoration, a habitat type that hasn't been able to regenerate naturally under current conditions because invasive species have crowded out the seedlings.
Construction tied to the August 3 contracts begins this fall and runs through fall 2027. After that, the city has budgeted for restoration management to continue through 2031. This is not a two-month detour. It's a project with a longer construction window than most residents' current mortgage terms have years remaining.
Where the Walk Actually Goes This Fall
The city has been direct about where it wants foot traffic to go while Moir and Central Park work through construction. None of these are secret trails. They're the specific list Bloomington Forward has published as the practical alternative while the creek corridor is torn up:
- Bill Warren Park, at Bloomington Ferry Road and Pioneer Trail
- Girard Lake Park, 8401 France Avenue South
- Marsh Lake Park, at West 98th Street and France Avenue South
- Dakota Mission Park, 401 East 104th Street
- Smith Park, 8155 Park Avenue South
- Tierney's Woods, on Bloomington's west side
For anyone willing to drive a bit further, the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge carries more than 46 miles of trail and several named access points that stay open regardless of what's happening upstream at Moir Park: the Bloomington Education and Visitor Center on American Boulevard East, the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge Trailhead, the Lyndale Avenue and Sorenson Landing access, the Bloomington Ferry Road Trailhead, and the Bass Ponds Trailhead off 86th Street East. If your usual Nine Mile Creek loop has become unreliable this fall, the refuge is the closest thing to a like-for-like substitute, minus the construction fencing.
Why This Is a Rebuild, Not a Patch
The reason the city is spending years on a creek trail instead of replacing one bridge and moving on traces back to a ballot measure most residents voted on nearly three years ago. In November 2023, Bloomington voters approved a half-percent local option sales tax to finance $155 million in bonds. That money was never earmarked for the creek corridor alone. It funds three projects at once: modernization of the Bloomington Ice Garden, a new Community Health and Wellness Center to replace the aging Creekside Community Center, and the Nine Mile Creek Corridor and Moir/Central Park restoration now underway. The creek work you're watching happen this fall is one third of a package residents already said yes to, which is part of why the scope reads as ambitious. It was designed as ambitious from the start.
The Other Third, Two Miles Away
If the trail closures are the visible piece of the bond package, the Creekside Community Center replacement is the piece easy to miss unless you drive past 9801 Penn Avenue South. Demolition of the old center was scheduled for fall 2025, with construction on its replacement running from November 2025 into 2026 and an opening tentatively set for 2027. Between the creek corridor and the new wellness center, Bloomington is mid-stream on two of its three bond-funded projects at the same time, both landing in roughly the same stretch of south Bloomington, both disruptive in the short term, and both converging on a 2027 completion.
None of this means the trail is gone for good or that the neighborhood loses its outdoor character while construction runs its course. It means the version of Nine Mile Creek that reopens in stages through 2027 will have seven new trail bridges instead of the current patchwork, a remeandered section of creek, an ADA-accessible switchback replacing the old stairs at Morgan Circle, and a restored oak savanna that hasn't existed in this form for decades. The bridge that's been missing since July 2025 wasn't an inconvenience the city forgot to fix. It was the first piece removed from a project residents already funded, and this fall is when the rest of the pieces start coming down too.
If you're weighing what a home near Moir Park, Central Park, or the Nine Mile Creek corridor looks like once this work wraps, or you're just trying to figure out which parks fill in for your usual walk this season, Eric Frank has been tracking Bloomington's neighborhoods long enough to help you read past the construction fencing. Let's Connect.
