City Celebrates Major Milestone in Superior Street Reconstruction

Phase one of the three part project is complete.

DULUTH, Minn.- A major milestone for the city of Duluth as city officials, business leaders and community members gathered for the grand reopening of superior street.

Spring of 2018 brought on plenty of nerves for the local community as construction workers broke ground, beginning phase one of a major project that would change the downtown area as we know it. But after several months, the street has opened up and the city is proud of the progress.

Cheering and dancing feet up and down the newly paved streets from 7th Ave. West down to 3rd as officials removed barricades for the first cars to drive on a completed phase one of a four year project.

“We started a conversation with the city over six years ago about transforming the energy infrastructure and what that would take, and we actually talked about the potential of transforming that infrastructure of superior street when that was going to be done,” Evergreen Energy CEO Ken Smith said.

Smith started the discussion with mayor Ness six years ago on changing the 85 year old infrastructure system in the city.

“This provided the opportunity to transform that infrastructure and replace it with 21st century infrastructure,” Smith said.

The project included replacing water lines, allowing for an energy system run on renewable energy and getting rid of the use of coal.

“It saves water, it saves energy, it’s much more efficient,” Smith said.

But the project was about more than just updating old pipes. A lot of the work done included widening pedestrian areas, parking lanes and upgrading downtown amenities with intentions of attracting more people to downtown businesses.

“You might stumble across me on the sidewalk, but when there’s no sidewalks… Or there’s detours here and there, I was, uh, pretty nervous,” Sara Sarvela said.

Sarvela owns the Frame Corner and Gallery. She was nervous going into the project not knowing how it would affect business during construction.

“I was pretty busy…which was interesting because i just think that people came downtown to check it out to see what was going,” Sarvela said.

She was grateful for the city’s continuous communication throughout the process but is glad this part is done.

“I’m ready for traffic. Bring on the cars,” Sarvela said.

Phase 2 of the reconstruction project is scheduled to start in Spring of 2019 and will go from the eastern side of lake avenue to 4th Ave. East.