The Plymouth Community Center and the Hilde Performance Center are close neighbors on the City Center campus, but on foot they have never felt that way. The City of Plymouth's own project page describes the gap plainly. It calls the accessible off-street connection between the Community Center and the Hilde, the Plymouth Ice Center and Plymouth City Hall "one critical link that is missing."
That link is now nearly finished. It arrives just as the campus fills its winter calendar with events that run across all four buildings. Taken together, the trail and the holiday season are the first real test of an idea the city has been working toward for years: City Center as a place you walk around, not a series of parking lots you move your car between.
The Gap the City Called Missing
The new piece is the Plymouth Creek Trail connection. It includes a 500-foot boardwalk, roughly 0.10 mile of new asphalt trail, lights, trail counters and wayfinding signs. The project moved slowly through 2026. Tree removal was underway in March, clearing and erosion control started in August, and crews spent late summer pulling out poor soils and setting helical piles for the boardwalk.
By the city's Oct. 19 update, the boardwalk was substantially complete apart from its wire mesh panels, and an electrician was installing the trail lighting. The Oct. 28 update said the trails had been paved that week. Some concrete work was still left next to the Millennium Garden, along with backfilling and site restoration.
The opening is a two-step plan. Once the rest of the work reaches substantial completion, the city will put up temporary fencing so the boardwalk can open while the mesh is still on its way. When the panels arrive, the boardwalk will close for a few days for installation and then reopen. The city has not given a date for either step. The parks-in-progress page has the latest status.
Once it opens, the trail lighting will cover the hours when most of this season's campus events take place, after dark.
A Holiday Season Split Across Four Buildings
The November/December 2026 Plymouth News lists a season that keeps sending people from one City Center building to the next. Santa's Mailbox shows it most clearly. From Saturday, Nov. 28 through Sunday, Dec. 13, children can drop off letters at four places: City Hall at 3400 Plymouth Blvd., the Plymouth Ice Center at 3650 Plymouth Blvd., the Plymouth Community Center, and the Hilde Performance Center at 3500 Plymouth Blvd., where the mailbox sits in the igloo with Santa's chair. Letters need a self-addressed, stamped envelope for Santa's helpers to reply.
If the boardwalk is open by then, here is one way to string the campus together on a December evening:
- Plymouth Community Center, 14800 34th Ave. N. Pick up a Santa Scavenger Hunt card at the front desk. Starting Friday, Dec. 4, 12 tiny wooden Santas are hidden around the building, and anyone who finds all 12 can enter a drawing for a $100 Parks and Recreation gift card. The art gallery is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. From Nov. 6 through Dec. 27 it shows work by the Plymouth Woodcarvers and the Open Art Studio group, two senior groups that meet weekly at the PCC and are open to new members.
- The new boardwalk and trail, once open. It runs past the Millennium Garden, where the last concrete work was planned.
- Hilde Performance Center. The city's holiday lights go up in early December and turn on at dusk all season. The city says it is offering the display to bring some cheer and get people outside in winter.
- Plymouth Ice Center and City Hall. These are the other two Santa's Mailbox stops, both on Plymouth Boulevard.
A few other dates on the same campus fill in the season:
- Nov. 14, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.: The Plymouth Artisan Market at the Community Center is free to attend. Vendors sell handmade soaps, pottery, candles, woodwork, jewelry, fine art and more.
- Nov. 17 and Dec. 15, 1 p.m.: Free movie matinees for ages 55 and older in the PCC's Black Box Theater, with popcorn provided. Registration is required.
- Nov. 29, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.: Low-Stim Sunday at the K.U.B.E. indoor playground, with fewer people, dimmed lights and no overhead music. A sensory room is available.
- Dec. 20, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.: The All Abilities Birthday Club at the K.U.B.E. celebrates neurodiverse children with October through December birthdays. Preregistration is required for ages 3 and up.
The one big holiday event off campus is the Plymouth History Center's Merry Market, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, at 3605 Fernbrook Lane. It has local makers, hot chocolate, and another Santa's Mailbox.
The Dome Is the Campus's Winter Anchor
The Community Center Fieldhouse dome at 14800 34th Ave. N. was scheduled to open Sunday, Nov. 1, weather permitting. It is used for sports, rentals, open play, walking and running. The Fieldhouse page describes an artificial-grass field with indoor walking and jogging. The dome is inflated for the season, and the inside temperature can range from 30 to 55 degrees depending on the weather outside, so bring a layer.
Open play is listed for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to noon. Admission is $7 for Plymouth residents and $9 for nonresidents, and children under 3 and supervising adults get in free. Walking and jogging hours change with the facility calendar, and no registration is required. When this was written, the top of that same page still said the dome was closed for the season, even though the newsletter had announced the Nov. 1 opening. Check the calendar before you drive over.
The dome usually stays up through mid-April. That means the PCC end of the new trail has a reason for people to come by long after the Hilde lights come down.
The Parking Lot That Comes Next
The boardwalk is one piece of a bigger plan. It grows out of Plymouth City Center 2.0, a study whose final draft is dated January 2021. The plan calls for better walkability and connections between parcels, multi-modal streets, and a central "downtown" gathering place that works alongside the Hilde. Plymouth Boulevard, which the city calls the spine of City Center, was redesigned in 2024. The city's list of improvements for it includes safer pedestrian crossings, roundabouts to slow traffic, trail connections, a Hilde entrance, seating areas and a plaza.
The next big step is the surface lot on Plymouth Boulevard beside Life Time and the Plymouth Ice Center. CCX Media reported on Oct. 9 that the city had picked Minneapolis-based Sherman Associates to redevelop the city-owned lot. The plan has two mixed-use buildings. The south building would have 205 market-rate apartments and more than 230 parking stalls. The north building would have 128 units and more than 280 stalls. Sherman was one of three teams the council reviewed in September. The others were Hempel Real Estate and a group made up of McCarthy Development, Monarch Development Partners and Great States Development, according to CCX Media.
Mayor Jeff Wosje told CCX Media how the project connects to the Hilde:
"The big thing there is that 50 percent of the people that are going to come to our concerts, come to the restaurants, are going to be people that drive there. The other 50 percent are going to be people that can walk there. And so we'll be able to do more concerts in the park, we'll be able to attract restaurants that people are looking for because there'll be a built-in density of customers that will be there."
The timeline is longer than one winter. CCX reported that the city plans a full parking study covering needs during and after construction. City officials expect to finalize the development agreement "early next year," which would be 2027, and the report says construction could break ground "by fall." In September, CCX had reported a target of approving the agreement before the end of the year. The Oct. 9 report moved that to early 2027.
So the walkable City Center the mayor describes is still a few years off. The 500-foot boardwalk between the Community Center and the Hilde is the piece closest to finished, and the city's plan is to open it behind temporary fencing before the mesh arrives, ahead of this December's lights, mailboxes and scavenger hunt.
If you live near City Center and wonder how the Sherman project or the Plymouth Boulevard changes might affect your part of Plymouth, the team at Zachman Realty Group keeps up with these plans and is happy to talk them through, no pressure. Move Forward With Confidence.
