West Maka Ska

West Maka Ska is a residential neighborhood in Southwest Minneapolis, taking in the western part of Bde Maka Ska (formerly Lake Calhoun) and the land west of it. It is bounded roughly by West Lake Street and the Cedar - Isles - Dean neighborhood to the north, the middle of the lake to the east, West 36th Street to the south, and France Avenue South and the St. Louis Park line to the west. About 2,600 residents live here, most of them in condominium and apartment buildings, and the private Minikahda Club golf course takes up about half the neighborhood's land.

The neighborhood's identity is defined by the lake. Bde Maka Ska — at roughly 400 acres, the largest lake in the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes — provides the recreational and scenic anchor that makes the neighborhood what it is, and about half of it lies inside West Maka Ska. But the west shore's character is distinct from the busier eastern shore and East Bde Maka Ska, across the water toward Uptown. West Maka Ska's shopping is one cluster along Excelsior Boulevard just south of Lake Street, anchored by a Whole Foods. The parkway's southern stretch and a few side streets hold the neighborhood's older houses, shaded by mature trees.

As far as we can tell, West Maka Ska doesn’t have a neighborhood welcome sign — at least, nobody has documented one that we can find. If you’ve seen one, tell us where it is — we’d love to be wrong about this.

Dakota people lived around Bde Maka Ska — "White Earth Lake" in the Dakota language — long before European-American settlement. In 1829 the Dakota leader Cloud Man established a farming village, Heyáta Othúŋwe, beside the lake, with seed and tools from the Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro at Fort Snelling. It was there that the missionaries Samuel and Gideon Pond worked out an alphabet for writing the Dakota language. In 1839, to avoid ongoing conflict with the Ojibwe, the village moved to Oak Grove, in what is now Bloomington.

By 1823 the lake had been named Lake Calhoun, after John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War and later Vice President, who was an aggressive defender of slavery. That name stood until January 2018, when the state approved the Park Board's push to restore Bde Maka Ska — a decision that went through legal challenges before the Minnesota Supreme Court settled them in its favor in May 2020. The renaming restored the Dakota name and removed the honor given to Calhoun.

The western shore started out as a resort. Louis Menage's Lake Side Park, where the Minikahda Club stands today, never drew the wealthy buyers it was meant for, and the land was replatted in 1891. The Minikahda Club was founded in 1898 with nine holes. Much of the shore was swamp; by 1900 only five houses stood just north of the club, and the parkway along the west shore was built on land made by dredging the lake, finished by 1925. The neighborhood's surviving houses mostly date from before 1930. Most of its housing came later, though: condominium buildings on the parkway from the late 1930s through the 1980s, apartment complexes in the 1960s and 1970s, and a new wave of apartments near Lake Street since 2013.

Living in West Maka Ska means living with the lake as a daily companion. Morning routines include lake-loop runs and dog walks along the parkway. Summer evenings involve paddleboarding, swimming at Thomas Beach just over the line in Linden Hills, or watching the sailboats from a lawn chair. Winter brings cross-country skiing on the frozen lake and fat-tire biking on the plowed paths. The lake is not a weekend destination — it is the front yard, shared with the city but experienced with a proprietary familiarity that comes from daily use.

Most residents rent. Of roughly 1,370 households, about six in ten rent, half are one person living alone, and adults 25 to 34 are the largest age group, according to Minnesota Compass (2020–2024). They live mostly in the apartment complexes and towers south of Lake Street and in the condominium buildings on the parkway. The few streets of houses — Ivy Lane, Zenith Avenue, West 32nd Street, and the parkway's southern stretch — are shaded, quiet, and well-maintained.

Day-to-day errands run through the strip on Excelsior Boulevard: the Whole Foods, a Caribou, a sushi bar, a burger place. Community mostly happens on the lake trail. It is a neighborhood for people who want the lake out the door and the city a bus ride away.

West Maka Ska's shops and restaurants are concentrated in one cluster along Excelsior Boulevard just south of Lake Street, around the Calhoun Commons shopping center and its Whole Foods. More shops sit just across Lake Street in Cedar - Isles - Dean. Beyond that, dining and shopping happen in the surrounding neighborhoods, all easily accessible by bike or short drive.

Outdoor recreation is West Maka Ska's main draw. The lake, the trails, and the park system are not amenities adjacent to the neighborhood — about half the lake is inside it, and daily life here is organized around access to water and green space.

There are no public schools inside West Maka Ska. Minneapolis Public Schools assigns elementary, middle, and high schools by home address, so families should check the district's school finder for a specific property rather than relying on the neighborhood name.

Private school options accessible from West Maka Ska include the Blake School (with campuses in Hopkins and Minneapolis), Breck School, and various Montessori and parochial programs.

Because almost everything that sells here is a condominium, West Maka Ska's median sale price is lower than the lake would suggest: $222,500 in 2025, according to Minneapolis Area REALTORS (which still reports the neighborhood as West Calhoun), down from $269,000 in 2024 and below the $350,000 citywide median. Twenty-five homes sold in 2025, and 88 percent of them were condos or townhouses. They didn't sell fast: cumulative days on market averaged 156, and sellers received 94.9 percent of their original list price.

West Maka Ska's Walk Score of 70 reflects the neighborhood's split personality: excellent walkability for recreation (the lake is right there) and limited walkability for daily errands (one commercial cluster, on Excelsior Boulevard). The Bike Score of 81 is strong, driven by the lake trails, the Midtown Greenway, and the Cedar Lake LRT Regional Trail.

Beyond that strip and the shops across Lake Street, most dining and shopping means a short drive or bike ride to Linden Hills or Uptown, or a bus ride east on Lake Street.

The METRO B Line starts here: its western terminal, Lake & France Station, sits at the neighborhood's northwest corner, and buses run east on Lake Street through Uptown and across the river to Union Depot in downtown St. Paul, every 10 to 15 minutes for most of the day. The Green Line Extension's West Lake Street station is under construction inside the neighborhood; the Metropolitan Council says the extension opens June 12, 2027. Downtown Minneapolis is approximately 15 minutes by car, and MSP International Airport roughly 20. Biking to downtown via the Midtown Greenway or the Kenilworth Trail takes approximately 20–25 minutes. About 92 percent of households have at least one car, but only about 54 percent of workers drive to work; nearly 40 percent walk, bike, work from home, or get there some other way, according to Minnesota Compass (2020–2024).

West Maka Ska is a stable, desirable neighborhood, but it shares the broader tensions of Southwest Minneapolis — and has a few of its own.