Grass Lake is a 27-acre wetland tucked into the south end of the Kenny neighborhood — a paved walking loop, a surprising amount of wildlife, and a patch of wild Minneapolis worth caring for. This is a neighbor's guide.
A resident-made guide, not an official site. Links to the folks who steward it below.
Grass Lake isn't a deep blue lake — it's a shallow 27-acre wetland (about two feet deep on average), and that's exactly what makes it special: a working piece of urban habitat in the middle of the city, near the Highway 62 / I-35W interchange. It sits in the Minnehaha Creek Watershed, and the land around it is Minneapolis park land. For the people of Kenny, it's the neighborhood's wild backyard.
Honestly, it's a hardworking city wetland, not a clear swimming lake. The Metropolitan Council and MPCA have monitored it since 1997, and the numbers describe a nutrient-rich, shallow basin:
Cloudy water, high phosphorus, and warm summers that bring algae: that's not "broken," it's what a stormwater-fed urban wetland looks like. But it's exactly why the hands-on care below (less runoff, more native plants, fewer invasives) matters.
Water-quality data: Metropolitan Council (Citizen-Assisted Monitoring) & MN Pollution Control Agency, via the EPA Water Quality Portal.
A paved loop trail (wide and smooth) wraps the wetland, an easy and pretty walk any time of year. Neighbors have logged 430+ species here on iNaturalist. Along the way you'll spot wood ducks (in nest boxes neighbors build and hang), mallards, red-winged blackbirds in the cattails, herons, even wild turkeys, cardinals and migrating warblers; painted turtles sunning on logs; and — a real bright spot — monarchs and native bumble bees working the plantings. Come late summer, there are wild raspberries and blackberries right off the path. It's the kind of quiet, close-to-home nature that's easy to walk past without realizing what you have.
Species observed nearby on iNaturalist (430+ research-grade). Add yours when you visit.
Much of the routine care (trail upkeep, trash pickup, wood-duck houses, native plantings) is done by Kenny residents who live around the lake, working alongside the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.
The big ongoing job is buckthorn. This invasive shrub has spread throughout the area: tough, persistent, and crowding out native plants. Knocking it back takes volunteer "buckthorn busts," and it's never one-and-done, which is why steady help matters. (Dame's rocket and other invasives turn up too.)
Grass Lake sits just southwest of MSP airport, so aircraft are part of the soundtrack — and a glassy, open wetland actually carries sound farther than the tree-lined blocks nearby (open water gives noise less to absorb it). If aircraft noise affects your home, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) runs a residential noise-mitigation (sound-insulation) program for homes inside its noise contours. Check MAC's "Do I Qualify?" tool to see whether your address is eligible.
Eligibility is set by MAC's annual noise-contour analysis. Informational only.