Downtown Omaha Is Booming: A Year-End Look at What's Being Built (and Why It's Worth a Family Visit)

If you haven't driven through the heart of the city lately, you might not recognize it. Downtown Omaha is in the middle of the biggest building boom most of us have seen in our lifetimes, and as 2026 comes to a close, it's a good moment to stand back and take it all in. Cranes have been swinging over the skyline for years now, green space has replaced old concrete, and a whole new chapter is being written a few blocks from the river. Here's a plain look at what's going up, what's coming next, and why the stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year's is one of the best times to load up the van and bring the kids down to see it.

The headline everybody knows is the new Mutual of Omaha tower. At 44 stories and 677 feet, it's now the tallest building in Nebraska, rising right at the west end of Gene Leahy Mall on the site of the old downtown library. Crews topped it out this year and the company is aiming to move people in around this fall. It has earned its own write-up here on Explore Omaha, so we'll keep it short: it's a genuine landmark, and even from the ground it's worth a look up. You can follow the official updates on the Mutual of Omaha newsroom.

The change that families will feel the most, though, isn't a single tower. It's The RiverFront, the 72-acre stretch that ties together Gene Leahy Mall, Heartland of America Park, and Lewis & Clark Landing along the water. What used to be a sunken, tired old mall is now rolling lawns, a sculpture garden, a performance pavilion, slides built into the hillside, and wide paved paths that connect straight through to the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge. It's free, it's open, and on a decent afternoon it fills up with strollers, scooters, and picnic blankets. You can see the full map at theriverfrontomaha.com.

And the RiverFront isn't finished. This summer, Heritage Omaha broke ground on a year-round public market planned for the corner of 8th and Farnam, right beside Heartland of America Park. The vision is a three-story building of roughly 52,000 square feet, filled with local vendors selling fresh produce, prepared foods, and goods made by Omaha hands, with a nonprofit mission to get good groceries into the heart of the city. It's slated to open in 2028, so this is a groundbreaking-not-a-ribbon-cutting stage, but it's the kind of gathering place a downtown is supposed to have. Grow Omaha has been tracking it closely at growomaha.com.

People are moving down here to live, too, and that's maybe the surest sign a place is turning a corner. The city has set aside a $40 million Urban Core Housing Fund to fix up and build affordable homes near the center, and new apartment projects keep getting announced, including a 186-unit building planned near 24th and Dodge. A streetcar line is on the way for 2028 as well, running along a downtown route that will make getting around without a parking spot a lot easier. If you like keeping an eye on this sort of thing, the downtown improvement district keeps a running construction map at omahadowntown.org.

All of that is exciting on paper. But here's the practical reason to come down before the year is out: the holidays make downtown Omaha feel like a scene out of a Christmas card, and almost all of it is free.

Start with the lights. The Holiday Lights Festival wraps the entire RiverFront, all 72 acres, in displays that run from late November through New Year's Day. The lighting ceremony kicks things off at Gene Leahy Mall, and on Friday and Saturday evenings there's a short music-and-video show that plays across the pavilion and the 10th Street bridge. Bundle the little ones up, bring a thermos of cocoa, and walk it slow. Details are posted at holidaylightsfestival.org.

A few blocks away, the Durham Museum turns the old Union Station into Christmas at Union Station, home to the region's largest indoor Christmas tree at a full 40 feet. Standing under it in that beautiful art deco hall is a tradition a lot of Omaha families keep year after year, and there's plenty of history in the building to fill an afternoon. Check hours and dates at durhammuseum.org.

Then wander the Old Market. The brick streets and covered sidewalks were made for cold-weather strolling, and it's an easy place to duck into a shop, warm up with a bakery treat, and let the kids window-shop before heading home. You can browse the shops and eateries at oldmarket.com.

Put it together and you have a full family day: park once, walk the lights, stand under the big tree, and finish in the Old Market. That's downtown Omaha right now, half construction site and half front porch, and it's genuinely fun to watch it grow.

Details here are accurate as of August 2026 and change fast in a boom like this, so please confirm dates, hours, and openings on the official pages linked above before you head out.