CRYSTAL | ROBBINSDALE NEW HOPE | GOLDEN VALLEY
COMMUNITY GUIDE 2025-26
New Hope belongs to thousands
What began as a township with 600 people has expanded to a home of over 21,000. The community was born of an outspoken group of residents, many agricultural workers, who didn’ t want to pay taxes to the newly formed city of Crystal in 1936. As a result, the border of Crystal and New Hope is noticeably jagged, as property owners struggled over which city they wanted to belong to.
The city of New Hope was incorporated in 1953 and had 2,500 residents by 1958. Today, New Hope is a 5.1-square-mile city that borders Golden Valley at Medicine Lake Road on the south, Brooklyn Park at 62nd Avenue on the north, Plymouth at Highway 169 on the west and Crystal on the east.
When driving along highway 169, New Hope’ s south water tower stands proudly over traffic and has anchored itself in the quad cities silhouette since 1968. The interior and exterior of the 1.5 million gallon barrel was repainted in 2025, now sporting a shiny new coat and an updated city logo.
The city has a Plan B council / manager form of government and employs about 90 full-time staff members. The five-member city council, elected at large, meets on the second and fourth Mondays of the month. All regular council meetings and planning commission meetings are cablecast on Channel 16 and live-streamed online.
2025 marked the loss New Hope’ s most senior council member, Andy Hoffe, who at 89 years old passed away. He
was a teacher in Robbinsdale Schools and championed public media access for the area.
In public safety, the city is served by the New Hope Police Department and the West Metro Fire-Rescue District, which also serves Crystal.
The newly constructed police station and city hall at 4401 Xylon Ave. N. are in their sixth year of operation. Nearby Civic Center Park underwent a near-total renovation, and the New Hope Aquatic Park opened to the public for its first season three summers ago.
Next to the aquatic park is a skateboarding park with ramps and half-pipes, and adjacent, an outdoor amphitheater used to put on plays and musicals in the summer breeze for the Music in the Park series and Off-Broadway Musical Theater productions. New Hope boasts 18 parks, a nine-hole golf course, an ice arena, disc golf course, off-leash dog parks, a community gym and more.
The entire city is in the Robbinsdale Area School District and is home to five schools, including Spanish Immersion School at Sunny Hollow, Sonnesyn and Meadow Lake elementary schools and Cooper High School. There is also a bilingual Spanish and English charter school called Escuela Exitos. New Hope’ s City Center includes commercial and residential land uses, school district administrative offices and a bus garage.
Community Guide 2025-26 | Crystal • Robbinsdale • New Hope • Golden Valley | 11