Drive Highway 13 through Savage on any weekday and you're one of more than 50,000 vehicles doing the same thing that day. Blink at Quentin Avenue or Lynn Avenue, the two streets that actually feed into the historic downtown core, and you'll miss the turn along with almost everyone else on the road. The city put a number on exactly how many people miss it: less than 10 percent of that highway traffic ever turns onto the streets that lead into downtown.
That figure comes straight from the Downtown Redevelopment Vision Plan the Savage City Council approved on December 16, 2024, after six months of work with the planning firm Bolten & Menk. The plan doesn't dance around the contradiction. It calls Highway 13 "our greatest asset and challenge," the same corridor that brings freight, jobs, and rooftops to Savage while acting as a wall between the highway and the small grid of streets around the historic depot.
If you're comparing Savage to southwest metro suburbs with an actual walkable Main Street, this is the fact to sit with before a listing photo of the depot building talks you into something the traffic pattern doesn't support yet. Savage isn't short on parks, schools, or land. What it has never had is a downtown that pulls people off the highway on its own. The city knows it, and everything moving through Savage's planning pipeline right now is a direct response to that gap.
Three Bets the City Is Making
The redevelopment plan isn't a vague wish list. It names three specific projects, and each one is at a different stage of actually happening.
| Initiative | What it's meant to fix | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
| Western Gateway at Quentin Ave/123rd St | Redesign the highway entrance so drivers register they've arrived somewhere, not just passed through | Tied to a $213.7 million Highway 13 corridor project that has roughly $145.2 million in secured funding, leaving a $68.5 million gap |
| Marion W. Savage Elementary site | Turn 8.5 vacant acres, closed since 2019, into housing that puts more people within walking distance of downtown | The school district and city are discussing apartments, townhomes, or row homes, but no land use change or development agreement is finalized |
| Hamilton Building | Fill the ground-floor retail space in a building the city already owns, rather than waiting for a private developer to build one | The city has been advertising two open retail spaces since at least early 2025 |
None of these are rumors. All three show up by name in the city's own approved plan and in a subsequent request for consultant proposals. But naming a bet and covering it aren't the same thing, and the funding gap on that first line is the one worth understanding before you weigh how fast downtown Savage might actually change.
The Building the City Already Owns
Start with the Hamilton Building at 4735 123rd Street, because it tells you something the highway numbers don't. The Savage Economic Development Authority owns the building outright and has leased it long-term to the Scott County Community Development Agency, with that lease running until September 1, 2049. Inside, there are 42 housing units stacked above 17,000 square feet of commercial space, currently occupied by a preschool, a daycare, and three retail tenants. The city has been trying to fill two more ground-floor retail spaces for over a year.
That's a city acting as landlord for downtown retail because the private market hasn't stepped in to do it. It's not a bad sign on its own. Plenty of successful downtowns started with a public entity carrying the risk on the first few storefronts until foot traffic justified private investment. But it's also a clear marker that Savage's downtown retail scene, right now in 2026, hasn't reached the point where landlords can fill space on demand alone. The city commissioned an outside analysis specifically to figure out the "highest and best use" for that leasable space, which is planning language for "we're not sure this arrangement is working yet."
The Timeline That Actually Determines the Gateway
The western gateway concept, the piece meant to make Quentin Avenue and 123rd Street feel like an arrival instead of an exit ramp, depends entirely on Highway 13 construction that MnDOT and Scott County are still funding. Designs for the corridor were presented at a public meeting on January 27, 2026, following earlier sessions in 2024 and 2025. The Nicollet Avenue interchange is scheduled to begin construction in 2027, with work between Quentin Avenue and Washburn Avenue following after that.
The total project cost sits at $213.7 million, and under the corridor's published 2024-2028 schedule, roughly $145.2 million of that is already secured. That leaves a $68.5 million gap between what's funded and what's needed to finish the work through the design, bidding, and construction phases still ahead. The gap is real but not the kind that stops a project outright. It's the kind that can push a construction start by a year or two if the remaining dollars come in slower than planned. If you're weighing whether downtown Savage will feel different by the time you might sell again, this is the number that actually controls the pace, not the city's stated ambition.
What Your Median Price Is Actually Buying Today
None of this changes what Savage costs right now, and that's worth separating from the plan entirely. As of early September 2026, closed sales in Savage have carried a median price in the low-to-mid $420,000s, with most homes closing somewhere between $340,000 and $525,000. Single-family homes have generally landed a bit above that median, while townhomes have priced meaningfully lower, often in the high $300,000s. Homes have typically gone under contract within a few weeks of listing this year, which is quick but not the multiple-offer sprint of a few years back.
That price is buying a car-dependent suburb with real strengths: strong parks including Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve, three separate school districts serving different parts of the city, and a genuine commute advantage into both downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. It is not, today, buying a walk-to-coffee downtown lifestyle the way a comparable budget might in a suburb built around an existing Main Street. The redevelopment plan is explicitly trying to close that gap over the next several years. Whether it closes fast enough to matter for your specific timeline is the actual question, not whether the plan exists.
Who This Actually Matters For
If a walkable downtown is the point of your move, today's Savage isn't there yet, and buying now means buying the promise more than the product. If you're prioritizing space, value, and a straightforward commute, and you'd treat any downtown improvement as a bonus rather than the reason you bought, Savage's current numbers already support that case without needing the gateway project to finish on schedule.
Either way, the thing to actually track isn't the redevelopment plan's language. It's the Highway 13 funding gap and whether the Marion W. Savage Elementary site gets an actual development agreement, since housing there is what would put more rooftops within walking distance of the storefronts the city is trying to fill. Those two milestones will tell you more about downtown Savage's future than anything on a rendering.
If you want a broader sense of how residents already use the parks and trail system that Savage's value doesn't depend on any redevelopment plan to deliver, our locals' weekend guide to Savage covers what's already working today.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Write an Offer
Will the Marion W. Savage Elementary site definitely become apartments or townhomes? Not yet. The school district and city are in discussions, and a land use and zoning change is still required before any specific housing type is approved.
When does the Highway 13 work near downtown actually finish? Construction on the Nicollet Avenue interchange is scheduled to begin in 2027, with work extending from Quentin Avenue to Washburn Avenue after that. No completion date has been set for the full corridor given the current funding gap.
Is downtown Savage walkable right now, in 2026? Not in the way suburbs with an established Main Street are. The city's own traffic data shows the highway that runs past downtown rarely funnels drivers into it, which is exactly the problem the redevelopment plan is trying to solve.
Numbers like these change fast once construction contracts and zoning votes start moving. If you're weighing a purchase in Savage against a suburb with a more established downtown, or you're trying to figure out what your current Savage home might be worth as these plans unfold, The Hancock Group can walk you through what the redevelopment timeline actually means for your specific street. Request a free home evaluation and we'll bring you real numbers instead of renderings.
