Drive down Market Boulevard right now and you will hit a wall of orange barrels somewhere between Market Street and West 79th, then again near the railroad tracks, then again if you try to cut across 78th Street toward Target or Cub Foods. It reads like four separate headaches. It is actually one piece of sequencing, playing out on a schedule the city set for itself.
Market Boulevard's rebuild was originally supposed to happen in 2025. The city pushed it to 2026 on purpose, and its own project page is direct about why: officials wanted the Civic Campus work, the park rebuild, and the private development already underway near 78th and Market to get through their disruptive phases before a full road reconstruction landed on top of them. That single choice is why this particular stretch of downtown has felt like a slow-motion construction zone for most of 2026, and why the end of it is now close enough to put on a calendar rather than a rumor.
The Decision Behind the Timing
Four projects are technically running at once in downtown Chanhassen this year, but they were never meant to overlap in the way residents are experiencing them:
- The Market Boulevard reconstruction, an $8 million repaving and utility project that started construction May 26 after being pushed back from its original 2025 date
- The Civic Campus and City Center Park rebuild, which is adding a splash pad, pickleball courts, a skate park, and a new playground around the library and the reimagined City Hall
- The Chanhassen Community Center, which broke ground August 31 on the Avienda site at Highway 212 and Powers Boulevard
- The Bennett and Harlow buildings, two mixed-use developments from Roers Companies rising on the old Chanhassen Cinema and Country Inn & Suites site at 78th and Market
The city's own language on this is unambiguous: Market Boulevard work was deliberately timed to trail the others so business access downtown would not collapse under simultaneous closures. That is a useful thing to know if you have been assuming the cones are a coordination failure. They are closer to the opposite: a sequencing decision that is almost done paying off.
Market Boulevard's Three Phases, Translated
The city has published a phase-by-phase schedule, and it is worth translating into what it actually means for a Tuesday afternoon.
| Phase | Segment | Window | Status as of mid-September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Chan View, Market Blvd (Market St to W. 78th), Market Blvd (Hwy 5 to W. 79th) | Late May through late June | Complete; downtown was fully open for the Fourth of July celebration |
| Phase 2 | Market Blvd near the railroad tracks, downtown water reuse pump station | Early July through mid-September | Wrapping up this month, though one small stretch between Jimmy John's and Wendy's slipped into Phase 3 due to utility conflicts |
| Phase 3 | W. 78th Street and Market Boulevard intersection | Mid-September through late October | Includes a full two-week closure of West 78th Street to through traffic |
If you only remember one thing from this table, make it the West 78th closure. That is the segment that actually cuts off cross-town movement rather than just narrowing a lane, and it is the last major disruption on the list before the whole corridor reopens. The Great Plains Boulevard and Lake Drive East intersection project, a smaller companion effort changing that corner to an all-way stop, is expected to be substantially finished by the end of September as well. Put those two together and the rough version of downtown Chanhassen that has defined this year quietly resolves itself by Halloween.
The Park Reopened While Everyone Was Watching the Road
Here is the part that is easy to miss if your attention has been on detour signs. While the road work has dominated the conversation, City Center Park has already reopened several of its new features. The playground, the pickleball courts, and the refreshed skate park are open and in use right now. What is not yet ready is the splash pad, the court lighting, and some of the surrounding landscaping, all of which are still being finished as the broader Civic Campus project continues.
That distinction matters because it is easy to assume the whole park is a construction site until the ribbon-cutting. It is not. If you have been driving past City Center Park all summer without stopping because it looked unfinished, the pickleball courts and skate park have been usable for a while, and the playground is not something you need to wait for.
What's Actually Going Into Bennett and Harlow
The other visible change downtown is the pair of buildings rising where the old movie theater and Country Inn & Suites used to sit. Bennett, the west building, will hold 184 apartments and 11,853 square feet of ground-floor retail. Harlow, to the east, will hold 126 apartments and 3,029 square feet of retail. Combined, that is 310 new residential units and just under 15,000 square feet of commercial space split across five storefronts, according to the city's own project summary.
It is worth sitting with that retail number for a second, because it tells you something about what this development actually is. Fifteen thousand square feet across five spaces is not a shopping center. It is a handful of storefronts serving people who already live within walking distance of Cub Foods, Target, Lunds & Byerlys, Aldi, Lakewinds Co-op, and the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre, all of which are already established neighbors on that same block. Bennett and Harlow are adding housing and a few new tenants to an already-built retail core, not creating a new commercial district from scratch. The project also extends Laredo Drive through the site, which will eventually give the area a second way to reach Market Street beyond the boulevard itself.
As of this year, some of that retail space is still being marketed to prospective tenants, so the specific businesses that will fill those five storefronts have not all been announced. That is normal for a project of this size at this stage of construction, and it means the most interesting part of this story, who actually signs a lease there, is still ahead rather than behind.
The 2028 Piece Nobody Needs to Worry About Yet
The Community Center groundbreaking on August 31 is the one project on this list that will not resolve by fall. It is funded by the 0.5% local option sales tax voters approved in November 2024, and the city has since expanded the overall budget cap to $82.5 million to cover upgraded partition walls, specialized gym flooring, and a service elevator. The building, which will include two ice sheets, a turf fieldhouse, an indoor walking track, and a 4,800-square-foot community room, is now expected to open in September 2028.
Mayor Elise Ryan marked the groundbreaking by saying she is looking forward to the day residents have the chance to "walk in those doors for the first time." That day is two years out. The useful takeaway for anyone living downtown right now is that this project's site work and heavy construction will happen at the Avienda site near Highway 212 and Powers Boulevard, not in the downtown core where the road and park work are concentrated. It will not add to the disruption you are currently driving around.
What This Actually Adds Up To
The sense that downtown Chanhassen has been under construction all year is accurate. The sense that it will stay that way indefinitely is not. The road work was deliberately sequenced to end here, in this window, and the two visible finish lines, Market Boulevard's Phase 3 and the Great Plains and Lake Drive East project, both land by the end of October. The park amenities most people assume are still off limits are already open. The new buildings going up at 78th and Market are adding housing and a modest amount of retail to a commercial strip that was already dense, not building a new one. And the one project with a multi-year timeline is happening somewhere else in the city entirely.
If you live here, the practical move for the next six weeks is simple: use Kerber Boulevard or Market Street for full access to Market Square and Market Street Station businesses, expect the West 78th Street closure to be temporary rather than permanent, and stop by City Center Park's pickleball courts if you have not already, because they have been ready longer than the cones outside them suggest.
The Hancock Group tracks these kinds of local shifts closely because they shape what it is actually like to live in Chanhassen day to day, not just what a listing photo shows. If you want more on what daily life looks like here beyond this year's construction season, our look at parks, commutes, and local perks in Chanhassen is a good next stop. And if this fall's changes have you thinking about what your own home is worth in a downtown that is about to look noticeably different, The Hancock Group would be glad to walk you through a free home evaluation.
