Tidbits - Feb 2026

Hiawatha Service Center Parking Lot
In its first meeting of the year, the new Minneapolis Planning Commission denied the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s (MPRB) application to expand its parking lot for the Hiawatha Service Center near the southwest corner of the Hiawatha golf course at 4755 Longfellow Ave. This was planned to serve a new one-story office building and would have increased the parking spaces to 171. It required special permission and variance from the zoning ordinance which set the maximum surface lot parking spaces to 100 for this property.

Park Board leadership
The new Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) met on Jan. 2 and elected At-Large Commissioner Tom Olsen as president and District 3 Commissioner Kedar Deshpande as vice president; and reappointed deputy superintendent Jennifer Ringold as board secretary and Brian Rice’s law firm of Rice, Walther & Mosley as board attorney. All votes were unanimous except for one no vote, from District 5 Kay Carvajal Moran opposing Rice’s reappointment. District 4 Commissioner Jason Garcia was elected to be the Park Board representative on the city’s Planning Commission, and Olsen to serve on the Board of Estimate and Taxation.

Open Parkway Resolution
Newly elected Park Board President Tom Olsen has announced plans to introduce a resolution that, if approved, would reinitiate work on the previously halted “Open Parkways” project and direct the superintendent to provide options for the “Open Parkways” project work to continue. If approved this could result in more frequent or regular closure of some parkways to motor vehicle traffic to allow them to be open for pedestrians and potentially other nonmotorized use. The Park Board is expected to consider the resolution in February.

2027 County Budget
On Jan. 13, the Hennepin County Board kicked off its 2027 budget process earlier than expected due to what County Commissioner Angela Conley called “unprecedented forces at work that will have huge impacts on the county budget” that include the drop in commercial property values, inflation and a potential lack of support from the federal government.