The stretch of Highway 197 you drive to reach Sanford, the middle school, or a quick lunch has never had this much happening on it at once. Cones near L&M Fleet Supply. A fresh Chipotle pad rising where Rod's Meats used to be. A new 7 Brew squeezed into the same block as Willow Creek Center. Behind all of it, a two-year MnDOT rebuild that will end with six roundabouts where signalized intersections used to be.
For anyone who already lives here, the trick this fall is not deciding whether the strip is changing. It is reading the sequence, so you know which drive-thru is worth the detour and which intersection to skip during the afternoon rush.
The Roundabout Rebuild, Segment by Segment
MnDOT and the City of Bemidji are running two overlapping projects on the same corridor, funded in part by an $18 million federal RAISE grant that the agencies confirmed was reinstated after being frozen earlier in 2025. The plan replaces three signalized intersections with roundabouts and adds three more on connecting city streets, for six new circles total on the western end of Highway 197.
The staging matters because it dictates which businesses are hard to reach on any given week. Here is how the work breaks down this construction season and next.
| Site | Lead Agency | 2026 Season | 2027 Season |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gillette Drive / Hwy 197 (near Bemidji Regional Airport, L&M Fleet) | MnDOT | Utility and underground work, realigning Gillette Drive | Paved surfaces, curb cuts, sidewalks |
| Middle School Drive (near Culver's) | City of Bemidji | Roundabout construction | Finish and landscaping |
| Hannah Avenue (south of Hwy 197) | City of Bemidji | Compact roundabout construction | Finish work |
Two visual details will tell you at a glance which agency built which circle when they are done. City roundabouts on Middle School Drive will have landscaped center islands. MnDOT's roundabout near L&M Fleet will use red-tinted concrete in the raised medians and truck aprons, matching the finish the agency installed at Highway 71 and Anne Street back in 2022. The Hannah Avenue roundabout is a compact design with an all-concrete center, meant to be driven over by semis pulling into Westgate.
The important number for residents is not the grant total. It is that most of the 2026 work is utility and underground, meaning traffic patterns shift often but the corridor is not being fully torn up in a single stretch. The heavy surface reconstruction, and the worst of the short-term detours, lands in 2027.
The Businesses Moving In While the Cones Are Still Up
This is the part longtime residents keep noticing. New tenants are signing leases and breaking ground on a corridor most people would expect them to avoid until the paving is done. A quick tour from north to south:
Near the future Middle School Drive roundabouts. Andrew Peralta bought the former Rod's Meats parcel at 1718 Paul Bunyan Drive NW in 2024, intending to build a Dairy Queen Grill & Chill. When the site would not accommodate a full drive-thru lane, he pivoted, and the property is now slated for a Chipotle Mexican Grill instead. Developer John Johannson told the Bemidji Pioneer that if the variance clears Planning and Zoning, groundbreaking could happen this spring with an opening by the end of 2026 or early 2027. The store will not have a traditional drive-thru. It will have an app-order pickup window, and the parking lot will share a curb cut with the neighboring Willow Creek Center, home to Big Apple Bagels and six other tenants. Willow Creek owner Robert Iverson pointed out that the morning-heavy bagel traffic and evening-heavy Chipotle traffic should share the lot without much overlap.
7 Brew Coffee opened at 1709 Paul Bunyan Drive NW, and the chamber ambassadors marked the ribbon-cutting with a $2,000 donation to Great River Rescue. That corner is now a coffee cluster with Caribou and the drive-thru Starbucks all within a few minutes.
Les Schwab Tires cleared a building that had stood for 74 years at Delton Avenue and Paul Bunyan Drive. The national tire chain is scheduled to open in the new build next year.
The former Marketplace Foods space on the south end of the corridor is filling in fast. Maurices opened there in November 2025. Sierra has followed. Bath & Body Works and Ulta Beauty are both slated to open in the same complex later this year, according to Bemidji Pioneer business reporting.
Peralta's Lakeside DQ at 700 Paul Bunyan Drive S, damaged by the June 21 storm last summer that took out the roof and an electrical panel, reopened in March for the 2026 season.
Downtown, one block off the corridor. The 4th Street Lodge, the former Elks Lodge that was renovated into a boutique hotel and event venue, now houses the Blue Oyster, a Thai-American fusion restaurant from Tara Thai owner Keng Dechawuth built around a menu of house-grown mushrooms. Blue Ox Soda Shop opened at 1401 Paul Bunyan Drive NW. L&J Café, a family-owned spot, opened inside Paul Bunyan Mall.
If you want the official version of what is closed on any given morning, MnDOT set up a 24/7 business liaison and a resident hotline at 218-444-CONE (2663). Email updates go through [email protected]. Weekly construction update meetings are on the schedule once heavier work begins.
How Residents Are Actually Getting Around This Fall
The corridor is still open for business through construction. HotSprings Hot Tubs, which sits next to Target and Culver's, has been reminding customers of exactly that in chamber spotlights. Here is how the routing shakes out in practice:
- If you are heading to Sanford or the airport, expect the Gillette Drive alignment to shift during the utility phase. Coming in from Highway 71 remains the cleanest approach on most weekdays.
- The Middle School Drive intersection is the one to watch during school pickup. Culver's remains reachable, but the entrance geometry is going to feel different once the roundabout goes in.
- Hannah Avenue is the back door into Westgate Shopping Center. When the compact roundabout is under construction, most residents will find it faster to enter Westgate from the west side rather than the highway side.
- If you are coming from the north end of town for a Chipotle run once it opens, the shared driveway with Willow Creek means the entrance is off the Big Apple Bagels access, not a new curb cut of its own.
- MnDOT has said event dates like the Beltrami County Fair in mid-August are being worked around, so weekend closures should not stack on top of major community weekends.
The city has also asked property owners along the corridor to consolidate driveways where they can, which is why you will notice a few familiar curb cuts disappearing over the next eighteen months. Fewer entrances mean slightly longer between turns and, in theory, fewer sideswipes.
Why New Tenants Are Signing Leases Mid-Rebuild
Here is the read that only makes sense if you live here. A national chain does not tour a corridor and commit to a build without believing the finished version is worth waiting through the construction for. Johannson said Chipotle representatives came to Bemidji, decided they wanted a store, and specifically pointed to the college population as part of what made the market work. Bemidji State and Northwest Technical College together enroll around 6,100 students. The rebuild is not just replacing pavement. It is adding multi-use trails on both sides of the highway, consolidating driveways, and pulling out the wide center median that made left turns feel like a coin flip.
For a resident, that reframes the cones. The next two summers of orange barrels are not the price of maintaining a road. They are the reason a coffee shop, a tire chain, a soda fountain, two national retailers, and a fast-casual burrito operator all decided this corridor was worth landing on right now. When the last roundabout is poured in 2027, the strip you have been driving your whole time in Bemidji will look and feel different from the one on the far side of the cones.
If you are thinking about how a corridor rebuild like this one might change the value of a home nearby, or if you want a read on what the same shifts mean for a listing on the north or south end of town, Wendy Steinmetz and The W Group live and work in this market every day. Request your free home valuation to start a real conversation about what your home is worth in the Bemidji that is being built right now.
