After two years, the 3rd Avenue Bridge in downtown Minneapolis will welcome back cars, buses, bikers and pedestrians.

To celebrate the 105-year-old bridge's reopening, the Minnesota Department of Transportation will host a community gathering on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The family-friendly celebration will be open to the public. There will be a welcome message from officials, food, historic bridge walking tours and other community-focused activities.

It will reopen before the parallel Stone Arch Bridge's closure next spring for its own repairs that will cost MnDOT $22 million to $26 million. The 3rd Avenue Bridge will serve as the detour for bicyclists and pedestrians between downtown and the neighborhoods across the river until it reopens in spring 2026.

The $129 million project was originally scheduled to finish in November 2022, but after assessing the remaining work, the reopening date was pushed back to this month. Work began in May 2020, reducing traffic to a single lane. The bridge was fully closed to traffic in January 2021.

The 2,200-foot structure, originally called the St. Anthony Falls bridge, opened on June 14, 1918. It made it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and was nearly demolished in the late 1970s, but MnDOT decided to rebuild instead of replacing the bridge.

MnDOT estimates that the construction and maintenance will extend the service life of the historic bridge by roughly 50 years. The bridge will have enhanced historic and visual appearance, improved lighting and bike lanes separated from vehicle traffic.

Other repairs include work on the bridge deck, or surface, and to the historic ornamental railing.