People including MnDOT staff, Marshall city staff and contractors talked about a proposed plan to re-plant trees along Minnesota Highway 19 (College Drive) after major reconstruction work is done this year. MnDOT held an open house event for the public Thursday evening in Marshall. The plan will be to plant new trees in the boulevards along College Drive starting this coming fall.

MARSHALL — The second half of major reconstruction work on College Drive in Marshall is coming this summer. Representatives of the Minnesota Department of Transportation say they are already planning ahead to plant new trees along the boulevards when construction is done.

At an open house event Thursday evening, MnDOT staff answered questions about the plans for new trees.

“We felt this would be the best way to reach out to the community,” said project manager Jesse Vlaminck.

Landscape architect Chris Ochs said the new plantings would be a chance to replace some of the trees along Highway 19 (College Drive) that were removed for construction.

The plans for tree plantings haven’t been finalized yet, said Ochs and project manager Jesse Vlaminck. But maps on display at the open house showed a proposed total of 85 larger trees and 39 smaller ornamental trees in the construction area.

Vlaminck said tree planting was planned to start in fall 2026. The work should have very little impact on traffic, he said.

The full construction project area stretches from Fairgrounds Road east to Bruce Street. However, MnDOT isn’t proposing tree plantings along the whole route, as there are already some large trees at the west end of the project area, Ochs and Vlaminck said.

Ochs said a variety of factors were considered when designing the tree plantings, including the size of the trees when they are mature.

“There are some different restrictions in the size of the boulevards” along the route, Ochs said. Marshall city requirements said that trees could not be planted less than 30 feet apart, so that also affected the size of trees that could be used. Ochs said a mix of larger, medium-sized and small ornamental trees were selected. MnDOT also tried to go with native tree species where possible, as well as ones that were resistant to road salt, he said.

The list of tree varieties planned for along Highway 19 include varieties of oak and honeylocust, as well as disease-resistant varieties of elm. There are also trees like crabapples, lindens, hackberry and shagbark hickory.

Ochs said having trees along Highway 19 in Marshall would have benefits like providing shade and cooling down pavement temperatures. Besides that, he said, “A lot of these benefits help with traffic control.” When there are trees present near the road, it can encourage motorists to slow down, he said.

Marshall Parks and Recreation Superintendent Preston Stensrud said MnDOT had reached out to the city for feedback on the proposed tree plantings. Stensrud said it was positive to see MnDOT planting new trees in the construction area.

“We lost a bunch of trees, so it’s really nice to see an initial plan,” he said.