Draft design of Hiawatha Golf Course Property Master Plan opens for 45-day comment period

Check out draft master plan for the Hiawatha Golf Course Area and tell us what you think by September 15, 2020!

Today, Friday, July 31, 2020, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) published the draft Hiawatha Golf Course Area Master Plan for a 45-day public comment period ending Sept. 15, 2020.

The master plan document is available in hard copy format at the Hiawatha Golf Course clubhouse or digitally on the project page and linked below. Comments will be accepted primarily online due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Community members can share their thoughts through an online survey or by emailing Project Manager Tyler Pederson at tpederson@minneapolisparks.org.

Draft Master Plan

The Draft Hiawatha Golf Course Area Master Plan is a written and graphic document intended to guide capital improvements in the area over the next 20-30 years. The master plan document is a direct reflection of the input provided by the appointed Community Advisory Committee (CAC), which met 7 times between March 2018 and July 2019, and extensive additional community engagement. View the plan using the links below:

Executive Summary

Draft Master Plan

Comment via Online Survey

If you require printed materials, they can be mailed or delivered in a COVID-safe manner. Contact Project Manager Tyler Pederson at tpederson@minneapolisparks.org to make arrangements.


Plan Highlights

The plan pushes toward a balance of golf and other activities set in a landscape guided by water management. It necessarily bends toward ecology in its aspirations, recognizing that restoration of natural processes—which were significantly altered by Wirth’s dredging of Rice Lake—are a goal greater than those supporting human activities on the site. With ecology as the yardstick, choices are made that err on preservation, conservation, and restoration rather than expanded disturbance and new development. While many uses are described, its restoration of sustainable water patterns and recreation balanced in a new ecologically-driven landscape that forms the higher order goals inherent in the plan.

With the vision and guiding principles, the CAC’s prioritized design element recommendation, focus-session input, community survey input, and input from our collaborating partners, the recommended Hiawatha Golf Course Area Master Plan includes:

  • Relocating an improved and reduced pumping strategy at the site to protect nearby low basements from groundwater intrusion to the same degree they are protected today.
  • Re-utilizing pumped water for a variety of potential uses (e.g. irrigation, snow making, facility heating/cooling).
  • Improving water management at the site while providing opportunities to address flooding in the watershed to the north.
  • Improving water quality in Lake Hiawatha and Minnehaha Creek.
  • Creating a destination golf facility focused on learning the sport and increasing opportunities for new players, including a 9-hole golf course, driving range, and practice facilities.
  • Celebrating the history of Black golfers at the course and supporting and providing an introduction to golf for people of color.
  • Expanding access to the site with bicycle and pedestrian trails, a re-envisioned clubhouse area that welcomes the larger community, and other new community gathering spaces.
  • Restoring ecological function through the creation of wetlands, riparian and shoreline restorations, upland prairie restoration, and protecting existing wildlife habitat.
  • Creating a south Minneapolis winter recreation destination complementary to north Minneapolis’s Theodore Wirth Regional Park.
  • Developing nine experiences that tell the cultural and natural history through permanent elements and infrastructure, as well as through art, performance, community events, and ephemeral experiences. Experiences include:
    • Stormwater Terrace
    • Pumping as a Resource
    • All are Welcome
    • A Place to Learn
    • Island Respite
    • Telling our Story
    • A Connection to Water
    • Urban Nature
    • Celebrating Minnehaha Creek

Master Plan Schedule

Summer 2020

  1. Draft Master Plan published for 45-day public comment period on July 31
  2. Draft Master Plan presented to Board of Commissioners (informal presentation, no vote)
  3. Public comments tabulated
  4. Master Plan finalized based on public comments
  5. Final Master Plan considered by Board of Commissioners

Fall 2020

  1. Public Hearing and consideration in MPRB Planning Committee
  2. Master Plan passed out of Planning Committee considered by full Board of Commissioners
  3. Master Plan approved by Board of Commissioners sent to the Met Council for review and approval
  4. Nokomis-Hiawatha Regional Park Master Plan is amended with Hiawatha Golf Course Property Master Plan

Additional Information

Last winter the MPRB published project updates about the following topics:

  1. CAC Priorities (posted Dec. 13, 2019)
  2. Groundwater Pumping (posted Dec. 20, 2019)
  3. Golf Course Layout (posted Feb. 14, 2020)
  4. Detailed Master Plan Process and Schedule (posted March 13, 2020)