As Bell Bank expands to Duluth, it's moving into historic Temple Opera building downtown

DULUTH – Bell Bank is moving into a historic brownstone building near the NorShore Theatre in downtown Duluth as it seeks a foothold in the market.

The bank, along with developer Titanium Partners, will be renovating the Temple Opera building inside and out while retaining the 130-year-old structure's character.

The multimillion-dollar investment — an exact figure was not available — is expected to wrap up by Thanksgiving.

"I can't emphasize enough how excited we are to be in Duluth and to get the branch complete," said Tim McShane, president of the Twin Ports region for Bell Bank. "The sooner we can get in there the better."

The family- and employee-owned bank, based in Fargo, opened a Duluth office with limited services in October. It has locations in Minnesota, North Dakota and Arizona and expects to employ about 15 people when the full-service branch opens this year. The bank has about $6.5 billion in assets.

McShane said with the NorShore next door and nearby work on a new high-rise apartment complex and the Essentia Health campus, the Historic Arts and Theater (HART) District, as the area is known, is suddenly the place to be.

"It's clearly going through a renaissance," McShane said.

The building will visibly transform this summer after getting a deep cleaning — its faded brown facade will be washed to reveal a brilliant red.

"It's really going to pop," said Brian Forcier, managing partner of Titanium Partners. "We're going to be very reverent to the historic, classic look of the building and restore it in a way that honors the classic nature of the HART District and modernizes it and makes it usable."

The building will also be prepared for an expected skywalk extension from the main downtown corridor that ends two blocks west and toward the Essentia campus to the east.

The Temple Opera building was named for an opera house that was once attached to it and the Masonic temple originally built atop it, according to a history compiled by Zenith City Press. The opera house burned down in 1895, and the top floors used by Masons were removed in 1942. The building has for most of its life been home to offices, retailers and the occasional restaurant and coffee shop.

The city purchased the building for redevelopment along with the adjacent NorShore Theatre in 2010. The NorShore was restored and reopened in 2018.

Titanium Partners bought the building for $450,000.

"It's a home run for what the city wanted to see happen with the building," Forcier said.