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After a decade of planning, fundraising and tribal engagement, a Dakota-led nonprofit will break ground this month on a five-acre restoration project at Owámniyomni — the place known as St. Anthony Falls — along the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. 

Owámniyomni Okhódayapi announced the start of construction during a walking tour of the site Monday. The project will replace a parking lot, an unused restroom building and the upper floor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers control station with native prairie, oak savanna and traditional Dakota medicines. A second phase, planned for 2028, will restore the shoreline and reintroduce flowing water to the mill race, a stagnant back channel, eventually creating a 25-foot waterfall. 

For project leaders, the heart of the work is restoring Dakota presence on the river. 

"We're forgotten in our homelands. We don't see ourselves here in our homelands," said Shelley Buck, president of Owámniyomni Okhódayapi and a member of the Prairie Island Indian Community. "As Dakota people, this is our birthplace. We don't have a migration story to where we're at here. This is the place where we come from." 

The site is located next to the Upper Lock. The lock and dam closed to commercial barge traffic more than a decade ago. Kjersti Duvall, project advisor with Duval Companies, said reaching this point required four acts of Congress along with numerous resolutions from the city and the Minneapolis Park Board. 

"It has taken almost every level of government that we have to move this project forward," Duvall said. "It's a huge win. It's a huge day." 

Construction begins in mid-May with site preparation. Crews will demolish the unused restroom building and remove the top floor of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' central control station. The asphalt parking lot will come out, replaced by upland prairie planted with seeds and soils sourced from Dakota Tribal lands in Minnesota. A limestone bluff restoration and an ADA-accessible switchback path will lead down toward the river. 

John Barrick, construction project manager with Loeffler Construction, said phase one will take about 13 months. 

"We'll get the bulk of construction done this year going into the winter, have a slight break, and then wrap up middle of summer next year," Barrick said. 

The site will be closed to the public during construction, though the Stone Arch Bridge will remain open. Visitors can still take in views from above and attend programming at the nonprofit's engagement space in the nearby Crown Plaza building. 

Phase two, focused on water, is planned for 2028. Duvall said the mill race is currently stagnant. 

"It's basically kind of a standing pool of back-channel water. There is no positive flow," Duvall said. The plan is to route river water over the escarpment to create the waterfall and revive the channel. 

Owámniyomni Okhódayapi has raised $40.5 million toward a $60 million campaign, with major support from Mellon Foundation, Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation and the Minneapolis Foundation, along with state environmental funds. Roughly $20 million remains to be raised. Mellon recently contributed $4.7 million directly toward the land transformation work. 

For Buck, the construction itself is part of the story she wants the land to know. 

"We know that the construction is going to further disrupt this land, and the land, which we see as a relative, doesn't know if we're here to help it or hurt it more," she said. "We're not going to do harm. We're trying to repair the harm that has been done." 

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Melissa Olson

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A Dakota-led nonprofit breaks ground this month on a major restoration project at St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis. The decade-in-the-making effort aims to bring Dakota presence back to a cultural site along the Mississippi River.

Restoration project along Mississippi River expects to break ground this month

The U.S. Corp of Army Engineers control station

Restoration project along Mississippi River expects to break ground this month

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