Downtown Duluth's skyline will be getting a couple of splashes of modern architecture soon.
Developers are working to figure out a demolition and construction schedule for a glassy, 15-story apartment building along the city's main downtown thoroughfare at 333 E. Superior St.
The $75 million project, which city officials said will help address a shortage of quality market-rate housing by adding 204 modern apartments, will rise near a $675 million, 14-story facility that Duluth-based Essentia Health is building. Nearby St. Luke's Hospital also is planning nearly $300 million in longer-term construction.
They are significant changes to the downtown skyline of a once-stagnant industrial city.
"These projects that we are seeing now are once in a generation, and they're all happening at the same time," said Duluth Mayor Emily Larson. "It's just tremendously exciting."
The apartment building, dubbed the Lakeview, will sit next to the Sheraton hotel and will feature units with floor-to-ceiling glass, wood floors and "interior balconies" so residents can enjoy Lake Superior views in all kinds of weather, said Brian Forcier, managing partner of Titanium Partners in Duluth, one of three developers on the project.
Plans for the bottom floor call for 19,000 square feet of retail space, including a grocery store — an amenity that community leaders have been seeking for years. The second floor will have space for medical private-practice offices, Forcier said.
The project will replace the Voyageur Lakewalk Inn and a couple of other vacant buildings.