If you moved to the blocks around Lake of the Isles any time since 2019, there is a decent chance you have never done the real loop. Not the paved oval that hugs the lake itself. That one never closed. The other loop, the one that carries you north past the islands, over to Cedar Lake, around Bde Maka Ska, and back without ever ducking onto a residential street to get around a chain-link fence. For six and a half years, that loop had a hole in it. As of this fall, it doesn't.

The hole was the Kenilworth Trail, and its closure was never a minor inconvenience for the neighborhood. It was the removal of the busiest connector in the entire Minneapolis park system, and its return changes what a normal Saturday around here actually looks like.

The Fence Came Down in November

The Kenilworth Trail runs about a mile and a half, linking the Cedar Lake Trail on its north end to the Midtown Greenway on its south, crossing Cedar Lake Parkway and the Cedar Lake Channel along the way, tunneling under Burnham Road, and crossing 21st Street at grade. That stretch closed in May 2019 to make way for the Southwest LRT's Kenilworth tunnel, the segment of the Green Line Extension that runs between Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles. A 2013 count put daily use of that trail at roughly 2,100 cyclists and 410 pedestrians, making it the single most-trafficked corridor in the city's park trail network at the time. That is the baseline worth holding onto: this wasn't a quiet side path taken out of service. It was the main artery for the entire chain-of-lakes bike and pedestrian network, closed for the better part of a decade.

The full trail reopened in November 2025. As of this July, construction on the broader Southwest LRT project is largely complete and testing is underway on the line itself, with the Metropolitan Council targeting an opening in 2027. The tunnel work under Kenilworth is done. The trail on top of it is open. For anyone who bought a home near the Isles after the spring of 2019, this fall marks the first chance to complete an uninterrupted lap of Bde Maka Ska, Lake of the Isles, Cedar Lake, and Brownie Lake without a single detour sign.

What the Detour Actually Cost You

For six years, that meant funneling bike and foot traffic onto Cedar Lake Parkway and adjacent side streets, narrower shoulders, more stop signs, and a route that no longer matched the mental map long-time residents carried around in their heads. If you've lived here since before 2019, you remember what the connector used to feel like and you've been waiting for it back. If you moved in during the closure, the workaround is the only version of this neighborhood you've known. Either way, the geography underneath your daily walk or ride just changed for the first time in years, and it changed permanently rather than as a seasonal reroute.

A Compressed Fall Calendar

The trail's return lands in the middle of an unusually full stretch on the neighborhood calendar, and it's worth knowing what's actually still ahead rather than what's already passed:

• The Uptown Farmers Market runs Thursdays from 4 to 8 p.m. at Lagoon and Girard Plaza through September 24, which leaves three Thursdays before it wraps for the season.
• The City of Lakes Art Fair, organized by Homespun Events, returns October 10 and 11 along West Bde Maka Ska Parkway between Lake Street and Rose Lane. The parkway closes to motorized traffic for the weekend, Metro Transit is offering free rides both days, and the B Line drops riders at the fair's north entrance near Lake and Dean. Artist counts differ slightly across event listings, ranging from roughly 140 to more than 170, which tracks with how quickly the fair has grown since its debut in 2025.
• Peak fall color around the lake typically lands in mid-October, which puts the art fair weekend right at the edge of it.
• The East Isles Neighborhood Association's Green Team organizes lake cleanups with neighbors throughout the year, part of the same volunteer network that keeps the shoreline and channel in shape.

None of this requires a car. That's the part the reopened trail actually changes.

Where the Reopened Trail Fits

With Kenilworth whole again, someone living near the Isles can walk or bike straight to the art fair without needing to find parking or catch a bus first, since the trail feeds directly into the same path system that wraps Bde Maka Ska. The two stories, the reopened connector and the new fair, aren't separate items on a calendar. One makes the other easier to get to on foot.

The same logic carries into winter. Lake of the Isles hosts the Luminary Loppet, a candlelit lake walk built around more than 1,200 handmade luminaries, an ice pyramid, and a S'mores Station presented by Albertsson Hansen Architecture and Interior Design. It closes with a party featuring Pryes Brewing and live music, and it stands as the Loppet Foundation's largest fundraiser of the year. That event depends on the same lake and trail network that just got its connective tissue back, and it's a useful reminder that this neighborhood's calendar doesn't pause when the leaves come down. It just changes shape.

A Neighborly Note

The physical map of this neighborhood shifted this fall in a way that hasn't happened since before some of your neighbors moved in. Whether you've been circling this lake since the fencing went up in 2019 or you're still getting your bearings, it's worth taking the whole loop at least once while the color is at its peak.

If you're ever curious what a home near this stretch of trail is actually worth, or you're weighing a move to be closer to it, the team at Regan & Hornig knows this corridor block by block. Schedule your private consultation whenever the timing is right.