St. Joseph's Main Street Rebuild Gives the Parking Lane to People on Foot

"Probably end of this coming winter, you might see some tree clearing work in advance of when we're going to be having to do that work next year." That is how MDOT's Jonathan Smith described the first visible step when he briefed the St. Joseph City Commission on September 28, according to 99.9 Y Country. He also said the plans are complete and a contractor has been chosen.

The I-94 Business Loop and M-63 project rebuilds Main Street from Central Avenue to the Blossomland Bridge. It also rebuilds Ship and Port Streets from Main to the Morrison Channel Bridge and resurfaces Niles Avenue from Winchester to Main. Read the plan closely and one trade runs through all of it. Drivers keep every travel lane they have today. The downtown parking lane goes to people walking. And the work that will tear the street up most is scheduled for the months after the summer crowds leave.

Where the Extra Width Comes From

When the city surveyed residents during design, pedestrian access was their biggest concern, City Manager Emily Hackworth told WSJM. On the downtown stretch north of Elm Street, the room to address that comes from the parking lane, not from the travel lanes. The project's recommended concepts, posted on the City of St. Joseph and MDOT project StoryMap and dated September 11, 2026, explain why the lane count stays put. A road diet on Main Street "would cause significant traffic operation issues."

The added sidewalk space is meant for wayfinding signs, lights, benches and landscaping. Some side-street parking near Main stays. Bumpouts are drawn to protect on-street parking along Broad Street and the angled parking on Pleasant Street. The StoryMap says the removal of Main Street parking will be coordinated with the city's overall parking plan.

The look of the new street was a local decision. MDOT's September presentation to the commission lists landscaping and plantings, decorative concrete, streetlighting and mast-arm traffic signals. It notes that the Downtown Development Authority and the city chose the lighting and furnishing styles. City and MDOT staff picked the trees together, a mix of native and non-native species meant to balance maintenance with long-term sustainability.

Crossing Main Without Guessing

The wider sidewalks only help if people can get from one side to the other. The final plan removes every uncontrolled crosswalk on Main Street. Each crossing that remains will sit at a traffic signal or have a median refuge island, and a crosswalk will be provided at every city block except Jones Street. "That's going to be the only one eliminated," Smith told commissioners, as 99.9 Y Country reported. An earlier draft also dropped the crosswalk at Pearl Street. The January 2026 refinement moved the left-turn lanes at Park and Pearl after input from Berrien County and the city, and it kept a crosswalk within one block at any point along Main. The turn-lane change came from the county's concern about getting in and out of the Berrien County Administration Building, according to WSJM.

On the residential stretch south of downtown, Main keeps its travel lanes, gains more medians for plantings or decorative concrete, and gets bicycle sharrows. The StoryMap says space, safety and historic constraints rule out dedicated bike lanes there.

Ship and Port Trade Roles

The second change residents will feel day to day happens where Main meets the river. Ship and Port Streets switch from one-way to two-way, with one lane in each direction. They take on different jobs afterward:

1. Ship Street becomes the main Business Loop route. It gets a new traffic signal at Main, median refuge islands and enhanced crosswalk markings.
2. Port Street carries local traffic and serves the buildings along it. Ownership transfers from the state to the city, and the concept calls for shorter crosswalks and less traffic.
3. Bike lanes toward Benton Harbor are part of the recommendation. Their final form depends on the bridge crossings, including available width and the grated deck.

The signals at Ship and Port are also set to be synchronized with the bridge. At the south end, the concept removes the northbound Main Street right turn onto southbound Niles Avenue and sends that traffic to Central Avenue. Hoyt Street loses its auxiliary signal and becomes right-in, right-out.

A Calendar Built Around the Summer

Most road projects get bid on a finished design. This one didn't. Smith told commissioners that MDOT brought the contractor in during design under a construction manager and general contractor arrangement. MDOT hasn't used that approach in recent memory, he said, and the last time was in Traverse City. He tied the choice to the job itself, with utilities buried deep and work pressed up against "a lot of buildings that are very old," as 99.9 Y Country reported. Having the contractor at the table early is how the off-season schedule came about.

• End of this coming winter: possible advance tree clearing.
• June to September 2027: storm sewer work, built from the river outlet near the jail up the bluff, possibly needing only lane closures.
• After Labor Day 2027: major road work begins, piece by piece, and the contractor keeps working through the winter as weather allows.
• Before Memorial Day 2028: target for finishing all work, depending on how severe the winter is.

Hackworth called that sequence "very welcome news" when MDOT unveiled it at its fifth and final open house, at the Maud Preston Palenske Memorial Library on June 17. As she told WSJM, "there's a lot of concern about what impact this will have on the city, specifically in the summer, specifically in the downtown area." That open house closed out a process with six advisory group meetings and five public open houses going back to January 2024.

The schedule shields the visitor season, so the closures land on the year-round calendar. Fall 2027, the 2027 holidays and the winter that follows all fall inside the major-work window.

Getting Around During the Closures

Trucks and other commercial traffic will take a long loop. MDOT engineer Maria Mumm described it to WSJM:

"The commercial detour route will go up on M-63, so coming north into town, we'll come across Hilltop Road, north on M-63, and then east on Napier Avenue, north on M-139, and then back onto Main Street in Benton Harbor, where you'll be able to come across the Bicentennial Bridge and to St. Joseph."

Local drivers get a shorter answer. "On the local streets, you'll be able to traverse pretty much wherever you need to," Mumm said in the same WSJM report. She added that some sections of Main Street will be completely closed, depending on the construction stage. For anyone who uses Main every day, the parallel streets will do much of the work through fall and winter 2027.

This Holiday Season Comes Before Any of It

None of the closures arrive this year, so the 2026 downtown holiday calendar runs on the streets as they are now. Small Business Saturday is November 28, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Merry & Bright Weekend runs December 4 through 6. Light Up the Bluff at Lake Bluff Park opens it on Friday, December 4, with a 6 p.m. ceremony and the tree lighting at 6:30. The Reindog Parade steps off December 5 at 3 p.m., and pet registration opens November 1 at $5 for the first pet and $3 for each additional one. The next possible sign of the project is tree clearing toward the end of winter, ahead of storm sewer work in June.

If you own a home near Main, Ship or Port and plan to renovate, build or sell sometime between now and Memorial Day 2028, the construction calendar is worth building into your timeline. At Cottage Home Realty, we help St. Joseph owners line up design, construction and listing dates with what's happening on their street. Begin your lakeshore home journey with a conversation about your timeline.