Bemidji closes Fifth Street NW for bike trail crossing work

Bemidji will shut a stretch of Fifth Street NW for a week starting Monday to replace an existing railroad crossing for the city’s bike trail project, forcing traffic off the corridor between Jefferson Avenue NW and Park Avenue NW. The full closure is scheduled to run through Friday, June 26, and a city rendering shows the detour plan.

The work will hit a route that matters well beyond one block. Fifth Street NW carries drivers through neighborhoods, past schools and toward Bemidji’s growing west side, so the closure will affect motorists, bicyclists and nearby residents who rely on the street for everyday trips. For a city where short construction windows can still trigger long backups on surrounding roads, the difference between a lane restriction and a full closure will be especially important.

City leaders are treating the crossing replacement as part of a larger tradeoff: short-term disruption now, long-term connectivity later. The bike trail work is meant to plug into a broader network and improve safety and access along the corridor, which is why the city is willing to take out the railroad crossing entirely rather than patch around it. The detour plan is the main tool meant to keep the headaches manageable while crews work through the five-day closure.

The project also sits inside a much larger Bemidji Rail Corridor redevelopment effort that has been building for years. The city received an environmental assessment on the rail corridor parcel in November 2015. In a January 27, 2025 city memo, the project was estimated at about $38 million, with the city awarded $589,926 for redevelopment and $902,082 for cleanup.

The redevelopment footprint is not small. A DEED grant summary described the site as 6.66 acres and identified a proposed 60,000-square-foot community wellness center. City officials were told in 2022 that the redevelopment could generate about $60 million to $80 million in private development potential, while Greater Bemidji has said the YMCA-related effort could create more than $65 million in new development, produce 77 jobs and increase the tax base through PILOT payments.

Bemidji’s population estimate stood at 15,770 as of July 1, 2025, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a reminder that these street and trail decisions are shaping a growing city, not a static one. City crews have already shown they are willing to close major streets completely for infrastructure work, including Park Avenue NW reconstruction in 2025, and the Fifth Street NW closure now adds another visible sign of how much the city’s streetscape is changing.