News and Current Affairs
Falastin will take over former New London Café
Fox 21 reports a Palestinian café and market will replace the New London Café at 4721 E. Superior St. in Duluth’s Lakeside neighborhood.
Lyla Abukhodair and her mother Ann have operated a Palentinian pop-up restaurant called Falastin for more than a year. They plan to open their brick-and-mortar location later this year. (more…)
PDD Quiz: January 2024
The first month of 2024 is almost at an end; see how much of it you remember with this week’s quiz.
A PDD quiz about the movie Iron Will sleds your way on Feb. 11. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Feb. 8. (more…)
Why escape rooms didn’t last long in Duluth
Solve Entertainment launched Duluth’s first escape room on Nov. 28, 2015 with a game called “Silent Night.” Pictured here is the first team to play. (Photo via Solve Enterntainment’s Facebook page.)
Duluth was right in step with the escape-room trend when it began to boom across the United States eight years ago. The city’s first escape room opened two days after Thanksgiving 2015. By the next summer, a second had opened. Both saw solid booking numbers early on and both made it through the pandemic, but by early 2022 both were out of business. (more…)
Mayor Reinert puts hold on Duluth library plan
Northern News Now reports Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert is asking city councilors to rethink future plans for the Duluth Public Library.
PDD Quiz: 2024 Coming Attractions
Take a peek into the future with this week’s quiz, which previews anticipated events and openings of 2024.
The next PDD quiz will review headlines from Jan. 2024; it comes your way on Jan. 28. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Jan. 25. (more…)
Duluth Art Institute continuing search for new space
The Duluth News Tribune reports the nonprofit Duluth Art Institute is searching for a new home as it prepares to leave the St. Louis County Depot, where it has had galleries and workspace since 1975.
Mixed-use development planned for downtown Grand Marais
Minnesota Public Radio reports a 30,000-square-foot proposed development in Grand Marais seeks to replace three businesses that were destroyed by fire in 2020. Plans for the project include a restaurant, bar and retail space on the ground floor. The second floor would have 10 short-term rental units and an event center with a rooftop courtyard.
Roger Reinert sworn in as mayor of Duluth
Roger J. Reinert was officially sworn in today as Duluth’s mayor during an inauguration ceremony at Duluth City Hall. City leadership and staff, community members and various elected officials gathered at noon in the first-floor rotunda to mark the occasion. (more…)
PDD Quiz: 2023 in Review
Bid farewell to 2023 with this edition of the PDD Quiz, which looks back on headlines and happenings from the past year.
The next PDD quiz will preview 2024’s coming attractions; it comes your way on Jan. 14. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Jan. 10. (more…)
About 50 housing units planned for Silver Bay development
Silver Bay, a city on the shore of Lake Superior about 50 miles northeast of Duluth, is planning for the second-largest investment project in its history. Minnesota Public Radio reports the nearly $25-million plan includes “a mixture of townhomes, vacation rentals, and seven residential lots, along with an event center.”
Trifecta of restaurants opened in Duluth’s Lincoln Park in 2023
Dan Lefebvre at Burger Paradox
Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood has burgeoned with new businesses of late. Three new restaurants opened there in 2023, including Bali Asian Cuisine, Burger Paradox and Oasis del Norte. A fourth, Ritual Salad, is slated to open in early 2024. (more…)
Sunshine Café leads the list of 2023 restaurant casualties
The Sunshine Café in West Duluth closed at the outset of the pandemic in March 2020. Owners announced this year it will not reopen. (Photo by Mark Nicklawske)
One of Duluth’s most significant restaurant closures of 2023 technically happened in 2020. The Sunshine Café closed more than three years ago as COVID-19 swept the country. What was considered a temporary closure at the time was finally announced as permanent in September 2023.
The Twin Ports restaurant scene has stabilized and grown as the pandemic has wound down, but the closure of the beloved diner at 5719 Grand Ave. in West Duluth can be seen as evidence the coronavirus fallout lingers. The Sunshine Café had been a neighborhood gathering place for more than three decades. (more…)
The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall (and Rise and Fall?) of Downtown Duluth’s Fifth Avenue West
Looking down Fifth Avenue West toward Duluth’s Spalding Hotel in 1889. University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
A few weeks ago, David Beard wrote a post on the future of the plaza next to the Ordean Building, noting plans for it to be sold to a private developer in conjunction with a future housing project. I recently wrote a rather long post about Gunnar Birkerts, the architect of the Duluth Public Library, and because his firm also designed the plaza, I ended up with enough information about this project that I thought it might be worthy of a follow-up post on the history of the Fifth Avenue Mall, a name so forgotten that a 2015 Perfect Duluth Day post referencing the mall clarifies that the word ‘mall’ as used here is “not about a shopping mall, but instead something like the decorative median with trees that stands in the middle of the avenue today.” (more…)
Duluth Mail Bag: Lower Taxes, Viewsheds and Roundabouts
As a two-time Duluth city councilor, now in my final year of service, one of my goals is to make city government more accessible, or at least help citizens become more informed. I figure there are many Duluthians who would like some simple answers to some simple questions. I learned in school that if there is something you don’t understand it’s likely there are many others who feel the same way. Hence the idea of the Duluth Mailbag column.
I won’t divulge who is asking the questions, but I’ll answer them in this format about once a month. Feel free to put a question in the comments for next month’s “Duluth Mailbag” or tweet me via @Hobbs_Duluth or email me at hobbsforduluth @ gmail.com.
Also, if you want to have a longer conversation, you can sign up for a 45-minute cup of coffee through my 100 Cups of Coffee project.
OK, here we go! (more…)
Duluth’s Inn on Gitche Gumee has new owners
The Duluth News Tribune reports Britney and Reilly Brennan are the new owners of the Inn on Gitche Gumee, a destination hotel and cottage on the shore of Lake Superior at the northeast edge of Duluth.
PDD Quiz: November 2023
Shake off the tryptophan hangover and get your brain in gear with this month’s current affairs quiz.
A holiday-themed quiz skiis your way on Dec. 17. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Dec. 12. (more…)
Cemetery land sale preserves trails through Morley Heights and Woodland wilderness
Park Hill Cemetery is located off Vermillion Road in the Morley Heights neighborhood of Duluth. The Park Hill Cemetery Association is selling 52-acres of excess property on its northern edge to the city of Duluth. The property will remain natural. (Photos by Mark Nicklawske)
A rugged chunk of deep forest in a remote northeast corner of Duluth has been secured for preservation and ongoing trail use after city officials agreed to buy the property, which was reserved for cemetery space more than 100 years ago. (more…)
Duluth 2023 General Election Results
With 34 of 34 precincts reporting, here are the results of Duluth’s municipal election.
Duluth Mayor
Roger Reinert – 17,518
Emily Larson – 11,716
Write in – 61 (more…)
Duluth sidewalk collapses under weight of boom lift
A building maintenance worker on a telescoping boom lift was pinned to the exterior of the Winthrop Building at 325 W. First St. in Downtown Duluth today. The brick sidewalk in front of the building collapsed under two of the boom lift’s four tires, causing the boom to shift, pinning the worker to the building under the weight of the boom. The lift tipped into a vault that extends under the sidewalk. (more…)
Duluth 2023 General Election Sample Ballot
Duluth’s Municipal General Election is on Tuesday, Nov. 7. The sample ballot above includes races in Aurora and the Town of White, along with school district races in Mountain Iron-Buhl (ISD #712) and Nett Lake (ISD #707). Duluthians won’t see those races on their ballots, and the city council and school board races on Duluth ballots vary by precinct. (more…)
PDD Quiz: October 2023
Test your knowledge of October 2023 headlines with this edition of the PDD quiz.
Batten down the hatches for next month’s maritime-themed PDD quiz, which is set to make port on Nov. 12. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Nov. 8. (more…)
River City Records & Books open in Lincoln Park
Chris Huppert shops for phonograph albums Saturday at the newly opened River City Records & Books in Duluth. Huppert had list of 10 hard-to-find albums he was searching for.
Traffic was brisk at River City Records & Books on Saturday. The new store at 1814 W. Superior St. in Duluth’s Lincoln Park Craft District opened on Friday at 3 p.m. (more…)
What is the future of Ordean Plaza?
A recent Duluth News Tribune story about plans to convert the top five floors of the Ordean Building into rental housing included a brief mention of the city selling the small park next to it.
This particular little postage stamp of parkland is called Ordean Plaza, a public square across from the Duluth Public Library. It’s part of the larger Fifth Avenue Mall, a late-1960s and early-1970s effort to beautify Fifth Avenue West. (more…)
Apartment complex planned for West Duluth
The Duluth News Tribune reports an 80-unit apartment complex called the Residence is being planned on the former Holiday Stationstore location at 3401 Grand Ave. The 1.9-acre site is between the Wheeler Athletic Complex and the ore docks in West Duluth. Merge Urban Development Group, headquartered in Cedar Falls, Iowa, purchased the land from the Duluth Economic Development Authority in 2022.
Gunnar Birkerts and Intuitive Synthesis: The Place of the Duluth Public Library in the History of Modern Architecture
Duluth Public Library in the November 1980 issue of Architectural Record.
Last month, an article appeared in the Duluth News Tribune about the decision to demolish the Duluth Public Library and replace it with something smaller in a shared building. The reasons provided for demolition instead of restoration mostly involve challenges to reprogramming and subdivision created by structural pillars, expensive building systems like insulation in serious need of replacement, and other issues related to years of deferred maintenance. (more…)