The Veterans Memorial Greenway Is Being Finished in Stages, Starting at Rich Valley Park

The underpass beneath Rich Valley Boulevard used to be an ordinary trail crossing. This fall its walls and ceiling carry a mural by Minnesota artist Cadex Herrera on the theme "Places We Served," which honors the many places around the world where veterans have served. The West St. Paul Reader reported on September 22 that the mural was finished. The paper said it sits a short walk from the trailhead at Rich Valley Park and that Herrera is known for his murals at the George Floyd memorial and on Wabasha and Kellogg Streets in downtown St. Paul.

The mural is one of eight memorials planned along the Veterans Memorial Greenway. Most of the others are still on paper. Dakota County designed this memorial to be part of a trail that people already use, so it is being completed in pieces on a route that stays open, and the Inver Grove Heights section near Rich Valley Park is getting its pieces first.

A memorial meant to be walked through

Lisa Thomas, Dakota County's Director of Veterans Services, put together a veterans advisory committee to help guide the design. She told the Pioneer Press that the group wanted the wider community to feel part of the memorial and wanted it set in nature, where people could find peace and share the space.

"We didn't want to put up a statue, or put up a little plaque. This will be an interactive memorial," Thomas told the Pioneer Press.

The same story describes the goal in plain terms. Military families get a more social place to share their stories, and families with no military connection can stop during a bike ride from Lebanon Hills and learn about a local resident who served. Dakota County's project page describes the memorial stops along the trail, which it calls "nodes," as places that honor veterans' sacrifice, offer a place for healing, and tell stories about military service.

Because the memorials are spread along a 5-mile trail, they cannot all open at once. Each one comes with the trail segment it sits on.

What is new near Rich Valley Park this month

The open section is about 1.5 miles of regional trail, according to Dakota County Parks. Three of the eight memorial plazas were built in the first phase. The Hastings Journal named those three as Places We Served, In the Service, and MIA Prairie. This fall the county is adding the interpretive pieces at two of them. Its project page, last updated October 9, gives this schedule:

• Interpretive panels, kiosks and shade structures at Memorial 5, MIA Prairie, and Memorial 6, Places We Served, scheduled for May through October 2026.
• Two shade structures set for installation the week of October 19, part of a work window that runs October 9 to 30. The county asks trail users to slow down and use caution around the crew and equipment.
• No trail closures are expected. Advance warning signs will mark the work areas.

The two nodes are not in the same spot. The county's interpretive plan places Memorial 6 at the Rich Valley Boulevard underpass, south of St. Patrick's Cemetery and Rich Valley Park. Memorial 5 is farther along the trail, on Flint Hills Resources property east of Akron Avenue and north of Cliff Road. The plan pairs honoring the missing in action with stories of Dakota County veterans as individuals. Its concept calls for a restored prairie south of the trail and a short walking loop with benches and story panels about veterans' lives before, during and after service.

The plans and the finished work don't always match. The interpretive plan proposed an underpass entrance made to look like stacked sandbags, etched with the names of wars and military actions from Gettysburg to the Second Battle of Fallujah. What went up under Rich Valley Boulevard is Herrera's mural on the same theme. A second crossing nearby has a different design. The October 15, 2024 ribbon cutting took place at a new tunnel beneath 105th Street, across from Rich Valley Park, which the Pioneer Press described as outfitted to resemble a battlefield trench and designed with heavy input from local veterans and their families.

Getting there: the trailhead is at Rich Valley Park, 1901 105th St. E. The greenway is open daily from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., and admission and parking are free. The county posts a printable kiosk map and a trail conditions page, which help with timing a walk during the late-October work.

All eight memorials, and where they will go

The interpretive plan gives each memorial a theme and a location. Six of the eight are in Inver Grove Heights.

The plan also names three main entry points, each with a kiosk, a greenway map and a county map of military-related places. They are Memorial 1 at the Dodd Road west end, Memorial 7 at Rich Valley Park, and Memorial 8 at the Highway 52 east end. Rich Valley Park is the only one of the three on finished trail today, which is why the Inver Grove Heights section has been the first to fill in.

Why the route was the hard part

The trail itself took a long time. It was known for decades as the Rich Valley Greenway. Dakota County Commissioner Joe Atkins, a former Inver Grove Heights mayor, told the Pioneer Press the plan had sat on a shelf for years. "It's been talked about since I was mayor of Inver Grove Heights, and that was 1992 to 2002," he said. Atkins suggested renaming it and involving the veteran community. The county board approved the new name, Veterans Memorial Greenway, in 2020. The same story reported that Dakota County is home to about 22,000 veterans, among the largest veteran populations in Minnesota.

Building the route is a road-crossing project as much as a memorial. The finished greenway is planned as a 10-foot-wide paved trail with grade-separated crossings, meaning bridges or underpasses, at Highway 3, County Road 71 and Highway 52. It will also have trailhead parking, wayfinding signs and connections to local trails and sidewalks. The interpretive plan places two of the eight memorials, Places We Served and Dakota County Military Places, at those underpass crossings. According to the Pioneer Press, the county received $10 million in state funds and nearly $6 million in federal funds for the project. The county's project page also credits a grant through Minnesota's Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.

The schedule for the rest of the trail

The county's October 9 update gives the schedule for the remaining two phases.

1. Phase 2, Dodd Road to Southern Lakes Park. Construction goes out to bid this fall. Work is expected to start in late fall or winter and be finished by the end of 2027. The county says it will share more updates once the contractor's schedule is approved.
2. Phase 3, Rich Valley Athletic Complex to U.S. Highway 52. Design and engineering continue through summer 2027, with construction in 2027 and 2028.

A second trailhead is planned at 4420 Dodd Road in Eagan. When the work is done, the greenway will run 5 miles and link Lebanon Hills Regional Park, by way of the planned Lebanon Hills Greenway, to the Mississippi River. Phase 3 runs to Highway 52, where the plan puts the underpass for Dakota County Military Places.

For walkers from Inver Grove Heights, the section near Rich Valley Park is where the memorial is furthest along, and it changes from one season to the next. A September walk passed the newly finished mural. A walk later this month may pass the shade structures and the MIA Prairie panels that are scheduled to go in. County updates and email sign-ups are on the project page.

New parks, trails and public projects like this one shape how a neighborhood is used day to day, and Sally follows them closely across Dakota County. If you would like to talk about what the greenway's next phases could mean for the streets near Rich Valley Park or Southern Lakes Park, Sally English is glad to share what she is seeing. Let's Connect.