A Metro Transit Gold Line bus stops at Helmo Station, in front of the Norhart Apartments in Oakdale, on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. The Gold Line, a $505 million, 10-mile bus rapid transit route between St. Paul and Woodbury, debuts Saturday, March 22. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Two sizable new entertainment centers are soon to be on tap for Woodbury — a three-level Topgolf complex and a Main Event center from Dave & Buster’s Entertainment — and both will share a distinguishing feature: their proximity to the state’s first bus rapid transit line operating primarily within its own road lane, or guideway.

Located near a new bridge over Interstate 94, the Bielenberg Drive venues represent some of the most public-facing new real estate investment along the Gold Line — a $505 million, 10-mile bus rapid transit route that debuts Saturday.

Given their easy access to I-94 and I-494, it’s likely both destinations would have swung into Woodbury with or without a new bus line in place, but transit advocates note that Topgolf alone is expected to employ upward of 300 workers, and not all will own cars.

With departures every 10-to-15 minutes, some predict the Gold Line will become a significant employment link and an important asset for companies during a labor shortage. Between 2018 and 2023, more than $805 million in permitted real estate development moved forward along the corridor, and Metro Transit is tracking another $1.2 billion in planned or proposed activity along the route.

“The East Metro has particularly poor access to jobs by transit, and the Gold Line is a crucial part of fixing that,” said Will Schroeer, executive director of the transit advocacy organization East Metro Strong, noting the bus will connect residents to 3M, a wide variety of retail sites and Metropolitan State University, among other destinations.

Woodbury to downtown St. Paul

The Gold Line, some 15 years in the planning, will offer free rides through March 28 in an effort to showcase the ease-of-use for potential commuters between Woodbury and downtown St. Paul.

It’s a corridor that municipal planners call ripe for new housing, businesses and economic development. For some cities, inviting more density along major transit corridors has been intentional.

“Some of the cities updated their zoning code, so when a developer has come to the table, it made it a little easier for them to get those developments through their planning process,” said Alicia Vap, project developer with the Gold Line. “Oakdale has done that and St. Paul has done that.”

In Oakdale, the Norhart Apartments — a seven-story, mixed-use residential building — now serves as an anchor development on Helmo Avenue, directly across from a new Gold Line station. Its proximity to public transit gave city officials reassurance they could adjust zoning controls to allow more height and density and require less parking than city zoning would otherwise call for, said Andrew Gitzlaff, the city’s Community Development Director.

Commercial tenants have taken notice. A coffee shop opened on the building’s ground level last fall and a restaurant and brewery plan to move in this July. To the east of the project, another developer has proposed a 280-unit apartment building and 100 townhomes alongside a future public park.

“It’s not just the transit line going through, but trying to create a new neighborhood,” Gitzlaff said.

New infrastructure and investment

In addition to zoning changes along the corridor, a new bicycle and pedestrian path shadows the bus rapid transit route from St. Paul to Woodbury, and Oakdale and Woodbury are now connected by the Bielenberg Bridge over I-94, which was constructed in 2023 with dedicated lanes for the Gold Line.

“If it weren’t for the Gold Line, I’m not sure when that would have gone in, probably not for 30 years,” said Gitzlaff, who called the bridge connection a boost for retail and employment sectors in both cities. “It’s the investment in the transit, but it’s also that infrastructure piece that plays such a pivotal role. You mix all those ingredients together, and it makes it ripe for investment from the private sector.”

The week of free rides is funded by both Ramsey and Washington counties, which are hopeful that the line — which has 16 station stops in St. Paul, Maplewood, Landfall, Oakdale and Woodbury — will serve as both a major amenity for existing businesses and a future lure for development.

Washington County has put its own development dollars where its transit is, locating a central service and licensing center currently under construction on Woodlane Drive in Woodbury, the Gold Line’s eastern terminus.

The Capital View Apartments and the Flats on 94 are situated next to the Hazel Street station of Metro Transit’s Gold Line in St. Paul. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Since 2019, two new apartment buildings dubbed the Capital View Apartments and the Flats on 94 have opened by the Hazel Street station in St. Paul, between White Bear Avenue and Ruth Street, filling in an empty lot.

“When the Blue Line (light rail) first opened on Hiawatha Avenue, developers were just waiting to see what would happen,” said Mike Rogers, deputy director of Ramsey County Public Works for Multi-Modal Planning. “As we get more and more of these corridors under our belt, developers are starting to get ahead of it. It’s an all-day trip to all sorts of destinations, not just ‘get them in in the morning and get them out in the afternoon.’ People need to be able to travel throughout the day, and they need to be able to travel more than just for work.”

By 2027, the corridor is expected to be extended from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis, broadening access for potential workers and employers.

At the Metropolitan Council, the buzz word for planners has long been “transit-oriented development,” or housing and commercial real estate that links seamlessly to public transit. Planned real estate development within a half-mile of bus rapid transit or light rail, and within a quarter-mile of an express bus corridor, is eligible for the Met Council’s TOD grants, which have annual limits of $2 million within any particular city.

Extra points are given to grant applications that involve affordable housing, permanent job creation, increased density or a likely increase in transit ridership and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Individual cities conduct their own “station area planning” to adjust zoning around transit stations for a mix of residences, retail and any other kind of development they’d like to draw, while also laying down sidewalks, bike infrastructure, greenspace or other amenities and transit links.

Transit has its critics

Development is seen across the street from the Tamarack Road Station on Metro Transit’s Gold Line bus route in Woodbury on Friday, March 21, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Public transit is not without its critics.

Given the smoking, loitering and public safety challenges dogging the Green Line and other public transit stations during the pandemic, some have come to see transit at times as more of a hindrance than a help to economic development. A proposed Purple Line bus rapid transit corridor from downtown St. Paul has drawn opposition in White Bear Lake, and the city of Maplewood withdrew its support last September.

In downtown St. Paul, an effort to develop vacant city and Met Council land surrounding the Green Line’s Central Station has taken years to draw a single developer, Flaherty and Collins of Indianapolis, which has proposed more than 300 units of housing in two bridged buildings. Madison Equities, which owns the Alliance Bank Center and other properties that have either reverted to lenders or remain at risk of foreclosure, recently described the light rail station as a hindrance toward drawing and retaining commercial tenants.

Dallas-based TopGolf’s written announcement heralding its Woodbury groundbreaking last November made no specific mention of the site’s public transit access.

Transit advocates see things differently.

“Transit in and of itself isn’t going to solve every single problem, nor is it going to create every problem,” Rogers said. “You have to get everyone at the table rowing in the same direction.”

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A Metro Transit study last year found that between 2009 and 2023, the seven-county metro saw some $50 billion in permitted construction activity. Development located near high-frequency transit represented more than $19 billion of that total, or 38%, including $12.8 billion in development activity within one-half mile of a light rail station, $9 billion within one-half mile of a bus rapid transit station and $3.3 billion in areas served by high-frequency bus routes.

Even after transit ridership plummeted nationally during the pandemic, ridership on bus rapid transit corridors has been the most resilient, rebounding fastest, and in some cases above pre-pandemic levels while eclipsing the traditional routes they replace.

“Cars have never been more expensive to buy, fuel, fix and insure,” Schroeer said. “An affordable option like the Gold Line connects people to more economic opportunity and lets them save money.”