Bemidji street renewal project begins Monday, affecting three downtown roads

Three Bemidji streets will see daytime construction starting May 11, when the city’s 2026 street renewal project moves onto 11th Street NW from Rice Avenue NW to Irvine Avenue NW, 10th Street NW from Jeannette Avenue NW to Park Avenue NW, and Jeannette Avenue NW from 10th Street NW to 11th Street NW. Crews are scheduled to work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the project is expected to stretch through September if the weather cooperates.

For drivers, that means slower trips and likely detours across a small but busy part of the city. Homes, businesses and school traffic near the work zone will have to adjust to a long construction season, especially during the daytime hours when equipment and crews are expected to be active. The city used the same 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. window for the 2025 Park Avenue NW reconstruction project, which was closed to through traffic, a sign that Bemidji’s major street work follows a familiar pattern of extended access changes while roads are rebuilt.

The street renewal project also fits into a much larger city program that began in 2008. By June 24, 2024, city staff said Bemidji had reconstructed, renewed or paved about 19 miles of streets. The 2024-2028 street renewal plan was projected to add another 6.6 miles, bringing the total to roughly 26 miles and putting nearly 28% of Bemidji’s 94-mile street system into rebuilt condition within a 20-year period. City officials also said about 4.5 miles of gravel streets remained and that roughly 75 miles of local city streets are not State Aid roads.

The numbers show how measured the work is. Bemidji said it averages about half a mile of local street reconstruction per year, a pace the city describes as a roughly 150-year rotation. At the same time, construction costs have risen about 30% to 50% in recent years, and the 2024-2028 plan carried total expenditures of $13,565,000, including federal highway, municipal state-aid construction, water utility and sanitary sewer utility funding.

That broader maintenance burden falls to a relatively small city workforce. Bemidji’s Public Works Department says it has 24 full-time employees and maintains about 80 miles of streets and sidewalks, while the Engineering Division handles street, sidewalk, water main, sanitary sewer and storm sewer projects. Questions about engineering can be directed to 218-333-1850, even as another season of pavement work adds to a growing list of changes on Bemidji’s streets.