West Superior Street fixes on the horizon for Duluth's Lincoln Park neighborhood

DULUTH — The city of Duluth plans to reconstruct a 1.65-mile stretch of West Superior Street that cuts through the Lincoln Park Craft District — a project that will replace aged utilities, including some that date back to the 1860s.

The West Superior Street Construction, which is still in its information-gathering stage, is one of six projects in Minnesota that in 2022 was awarded a federal grant — $25 million of the anticipated $38 million cost — through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program. The money will be put toward the construction of roadways and updated utilities, green infrastructure and storm water management, ADA accessible sidewalks, electric charging stations, improved safety features, protected bike lanes, public art and more.

"We're eager for it to get worked on," said Stephanie LaFleur, president of the Lincoln Park Business Group and owner of the Caddy Shack Indoor Golf & Pub, a business in the heart of the construction project. "Just to have that infrastructure redone is priceless. City services have been needing an upgrade for a long time."

The 1.65-mile area spans from near the M&H gas station — a wide swath of road that, before Interstate 35 expanded, was the premiere road into downtown Duluth — to the Waste Management center on the 3100 block.

West Superior Street is the main artery through a neighborhood that has in recent years been defined by the hand-crafted aesthetic of some of the small businesses that have set up here: Bent Paddle Brewing Company, Frost River, the Duluth Folk School and a handful of eateries owned by Tom Hanson, including OMC Smokehouse, Corktown Deli & Brews and a new burger joint expected to open in mid-May.

At the same time, it's in a neighborhood with a 39% poverty rate — about double the city's overall number — and where 40 percent of households do not have a car, according to James Gittemeier, senior transportation planner for the city. West Superior Street runs alongside I-35, and is crossed over by Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has been working on the $435 million Twin Ports Interchange in this area for about two years.

"This neighborhood bears the brunt of regional transportation infrastructure," Gittemeier said. "In this grant application, we were making the case that the [West] Superior Street project would be the other side of that. We could really focus on the neighborhood and its needs while all this regional infrastructure is getting rebuilt."

Residents of the neighborhood have been asking for various improvements since at least the early 2000s, according to Alex Popp, project engineer for the city. The RAISE grant has turned improvements into a key city project.

"The road and the utilities mostly work, they're just not as good as they could be," Popp said. "Now we're able to get in there and fix them and rebuild the street in a manner that serves the current and future users of the corridor."

Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2026 and run through the fall of 2028. Between now and the end of the year there will be environmental reviews and community outreach.

A recent informal information session held at the Lincoln Park Community Center drew dozens of neighbors. Some placed sticky notes with comments or suggestions on a map of the proposed construction area: "more trees," "protected bike lane," "tourists have no idea there is such a cool park [nearby]."

LaFleur said that in the past five years, this district has grown to include 70 local businesses — up from 20. Parking is the Lincoln Park neighborhood's biggest need, in addition to shifting the bike lane from its current route on West Superior Street to West Michigan Street, which runs parallel.

"It will be an inconvenience for a few years," she said. "But the outlook on the horizon is much brighter."