Grand Rounds Missing Link This project will connect East River Parkway with St. Anthony Parkway providing Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis and adjoining communities access to parks, trails, paths and green space.

Project History

2024: Grand Rounds Missing Link design and construction phase launches.

2023: Minnesota state legislature allocates $5.5 million to Grand Rounds Missing Link in state infrastructure bill.

2018: MPRB Commissioners pass resolution prioritizing funding for unfinished regional parks in the regional park budgeting process, beginning in 2024.

2018: Grand Rounds Missing Link Regional Trail Plan adopted by MPRB and Met Council.

2008: MPRB approves the Grand Rounds Missing Link route alignment but plan is not adopted by Met Council so does not become the vision for the regional trail system.

1998: Grand Rounds is designated a National Scenic Byway.

1970s: Eckbo Dean Austin & Williams, landscape architects, hired to improve the Grand Rounds. A Missing Link route is sketched but not executed. The “Bicycle Grand Rounds” were developed to parallel parkways.

1966: A Proposed Program for Scenic Roads and Parkways Prepared for the President’s Council on Recreation and Natural Beauty by the U.S. Department of Commerce

1952: Future of Minneapolis Parkways and Boulevards is published by MPRB Superintendent Charles E. Doell.

1931-1939: Plans are prepared for the Missing Link Parkway under direction of Superintendents Theodore Wirth and Christian Bossen.

1888-1920s: Land for parks and parkways acquired and constructed except for a gap in NE Minneapolis.

1891: The system of connecting parks and parkways was first called the “Grand Rounds” by William Watts Folwell.

1883: Plan for Minneapolis Park System prepared by Landscape Architect Horace W. S. Cleveland.

In 1883 Cleveland, a landscape architect, took his idea for a continuous “green necklace” of parkways and open space around Minneapolis to the newly-formed Board of Park Commissioners. Over the decades it grew link by link to become the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway that today it features over 50 miles of parkway, bicycle and pedestrian trails and park amenities, and attracts over 14 million visits each year.

However, a three-mile gap remains in the area north of I-94 and east of the Mississippi River. Several master plans have been developed over the past 100 years to complete the Grand Rounds but the trail gap has persisted. In 2009, a master planning effort was supported by community members and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board but was never adopted by the Metropolitan Council due to a lack of interagency support for the trail route and vision.

In 2018, MPRB Commissioners pass resolution prioritizing funding for unfinished regional parks in the regional park budgeting process, beginning in 2024. In 2019, the trail plan was revisited and an updated plan was adopted by the MPRB as well as Metropolitan Council. It is the policy guidance for the regional trail. The Met Council’s preferred alternative is a single route, but MPRB opted to maintain a flexible vision for the middle segment of the Missing Link.

Minnesota state legislature allocates $5.5 million to Grand Rounds Missing Link in 2023 state infrastructure bill. In 2024, the Grand Rounds Missing Link design and construction phase launched to finally complete the Missing Link, incrementally over the next decade.