BEMIDJI — The end is in sight for the first year of the major reconstruction project on Paul Bunyan Drive.
Temporary roundabouts along Hannah Avenue were being installed Thursday, Sept. 3, ahead of another detour that will begin Tuesday — when many of Bemidji’s students return to classes.
“On that first day of school, we know it is chaotic that morning,” said Leslie Seitz, who works on public affairs from the Minnesota Department of Transportation's Bemidji office. “So we will wait to implement that detour until later in the morning.”
Drivers will detour onto Hannah Avenue and Anne Street during this two-week closure to reconstruct the northern sides of the Highway 71 and Paul Bunyan Drive/Highway 197 intersection.
People traveling in and out of Bemidji have endured a long summer of cones, detours and lane shifts as MnDOT rebuilt Highway 197, between Walmart and Menards on the city’s main thoroughfare. The project includes replacing some traffic signals with roundabouts. Crews have also added new multi-use trails and concrete median.
Contractors with the city of Bemidji are on the roundabout trend, too: a new roundabout near Bemidji Middle School was installed in 2025, and more roundabouts and walking paths on Middle School Drive and Hannah Avenue near the Westridge Shopping Center — which includes Target and TJ Maxx — were in this year's construction zone.
Seitz said MnDOT's construction is ahead of schedule and expected to end in early October. She noted that much of the work is being done in concrete instead of the bituminous that was in place before.
“If this project were more bituminous, then of course we could have had it constructed a lot quicker. But this is concrete,” she said. “This is going to last a lot longer and it's going to look great.”
The second phase of MnDOT’s planned project will begin in May 2027 and include the northern segment of Highway 197, between Menard’s and the Bemidji Regional Airport.
More project details are on MnDOT’s website.
