Hopkins Gets Its Train in June, and Mainstreet Is Already Changing Hands

"Our city's name actually came from a train station," Hopkins Mayor Patrick Hanlon said at an Oct. 23 press conference about the Green Line Extension. "In 2027, we are returning home to our rightful place as that bustling city on a train line."

When he said it, the target was still a loose "early 2027." Now there's a real date. On Sept. 26, 2026, Metro Transit announced that the extended Green Line will begin carrying passengers on June 12, 2027, with service through Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. That's about eight months from today.

Treating June as the day downtown Hopkins starts to change gets the order backward. Mainstreet's changeover started months ago. A restaurant that helped launch the downtown redevelopment has closed. Its space is going to a new operator. A homegrown ice cream maker is getting ready to open a storefront. And a new building at the west end of Mainstreet is scheduled to finish the same month the trains begin running. The train date is the deadline that handoff is working toward, and this fall and winter are the last stretch of Mainstreet before the trains.

June 2027 is a double deadline

Two separate schedules land in the same month. Footprint Development broke ground on a four-story, 41-unit, solar-powered apartment building at 501 Mainstreet, and the Sun Sailor reported that construction is expected to wrap in June 2027, with residents moving in the following July. The plans include 77-kW rooftop solar panels expected to cover about 40% of the building's annual energy use, along with rooftop rainwater harvesting for toilets and irrigation, which is a first for the developer.

Zoom out and the scale gets bigger. A Met Council press release, reported by the Sun Sailor when track testing began, counted more than $329 million in new development and 1,300 new multifamily units in Hopkins tied to the light rail corridor. That's a lot for a city whose commercial development under the same count came to $27 million. Most of what's coming is housing. Mainstreet's storefronts carry the job of turning those new neighbors into foot traffic.

Here's the countdown as the sources lay it out:

1. Oct. 31, 2026: Halloween in Hopkins on Mainstreet, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
2. Dec. 5, 2026: Holiday in Hopkins, 2 to 4:45 p.m., followed by the Elks Lodge tree lighting at 5 p.m.
3. Through fall and winter: Metro Transit keeps up the testing, training and construction along the 14.5-mile corridor.
4. June 12, 2027: Passenger service begins on the extended Green Line.
5. June 2027: Construction at 501 Mainstreet is expected to finish, with move-ins starting in July.

The busiest handoff is at 1106 Mainstreet

Thirty Bales closed on May 9. Its owners had run a business in Hopkins for 30 years, going back to the Big 10 before it. In their farewell post on Facebook, they said they were "honored to be one of the first businesses to open as part of the downtown Hopkins redevelopment" and to have helped "kickstart a renewed and vibrant culture of Mainstreet."

That sums up the handoff. One of the businesses that opened the redevelopment era has left, and the next tenant is moving in ahead of the trains. The Sun Sailor reported that Lago Tacos is taking over 1106 Mainstreet, and that the Hopkins City Council unanimously approved its on-sale liquor license on June 16. Owner Mike Slater described it as a scratch kitchen serving tacos, nachos, burritos, bowls, salads and house-made margaritas.

According to the Sun Sailor, Mayor Hanlon said several restaurants were interested in the space. Slater said a representative of the building's developer told him they didn't want "another burger and wing place" there. That tells you how the people deciding who gets Mainstreet's prime corners are thinking about the mix ahead of the line's opening.

Lago had aimed to open before the Raspberry Festival in mid-July. That didn't happen. The Star Tribune's Oct. 5, 2026 restaurant roll call still listed Lago Tacos in Hopkins as "preparing to open," with no date given. Until Lago announces a date, the opening is still pending. Hopkins would be Lago's fourth location, after St. Louis Park, Plymouth and Excelsior.

A to Z is turning its Thursday-night pint drop into a storefront

At the east end of the same street, the changeover is happening with a business that already belongs to Hopkins. A to Z Creamery started in St. Louis Park as founder Zach Vraa's pandemic hobby and has operated in Hopkins for about three years. Fans know how it works. Pints go on sale online on Thursday nights, sell out fast, and get picked up at 703 Mainstreet on a few set days. That space has never been a walk-in shop. The drops are still going this month. A to Z's ordering page shows a current drop with pickups on Oct. 9, 10 and 12, plus weekly drops back through September.

The plan for 705 Mainstreet, next door, is a seasonal shop open on weekends. It would sell vanilla bean soft serve every week, plus one rotating flavor you can twist with the vanilla, and one featured baked good each week, such as chocolate chip banana bread, triple chocolate brownies or tres leches. "There's not really a space where people can come down, enjoy their ice cream, sit down, chat, meet new people," Vraa told the Sun Sailor.

The Star Tribune had reported a spring 2026 target. In its Oct. 5 roundup, the paper still listed the shop as "Announced - Coming Soon," with an opening sometime in 2026. No opening date has been announced for the seasonal, weekends-only shop.

The three blocks built for exactly this

Hopkins didn't wait for a date before getting ready. Back in 2015, a city report described 8th Avenue South as the link between Mainstreet and the planned Downtown Hopkins station at Excelsior Boulevard, closing a gap of about three blocks that also connects two regional trails. The design called for a two-way protected cycle track, more room for pedestrians, landscaping, stormwater treatment, and space for gathering and public art.

The corridor, now called the Artery, opened with a public art walk and bikeway celebration on Sept. 22. The crowd chalked a mandala in front of the Moline apartments, and LTD Brewing co-owner Blake Verdon, in lederhosen, led a three-block kazoo parade to the brewery to kick off Oktoberfest. For years the Artery has been a bike lane that ends at a station with no trains. Starting June 12, that walk from Mainstreet to Excelsior Boulevard will finally lead somewhere.

Hopkins has two more stations on the line, Blake Road and Shady Oak. The south end of town got a preview in September. According to the Met Council's Sept. 18, 2026 construction newsletter, Metro Transit's safety team brought emergency crews from all five corridor cities to Shady Oak Station for an exercise that simulated a car colliding with a light rail train. If you saw emergency vehicles gathered at the station that Monday, that's what was going on.

What fills Mainstreet before the trains do

The street's long-running anchors keep the calendar full until the new businesses show up. The Hopkins Center for the Arts at 1111 Mainstreet, just down the block from the future Lago Tacos, has these shows on its fall and early-winter schedule:

The holiday afternoon has changed too. The Hopkins Business & Civic Association lists photos with Mr. and Mrs. Claus, gingerbread and ornament decorating, a hot cocoa station, letters to Santa, and fire pits with s'mores. It also says horse-drawn carriage rides won't be back, because the longtime driver has retired and other providers are either booked years out or retiring themselves. Whoever wants to fill that slot has until next December, and by then this event will be a short walk from a working light rail station.

Watching Mainstreet change hands over a few seasons is the kind of street-level detail Hopkins homeowners ask about when they're thinking ahead to the next few years. If you'd like to talk through how the Green Line timeline and the new storefronts fit into your plans, Jesse James Forsell knows these blocks well. Schedule a free consultation and bring your questions about Mainstreet.