Board of Trade Building Now Under Construction

Rent for the apartments will range between $900 and $1,500 per month.

DULUTH, Minn. – The historic Board of Trade building on 1st Street in Duluth, is well on its way to becoming the next mixed–use space in the city.

Last year the building was purchased by a Chicago based developer, planning to offer apartments and commercial space.

Now construction crews are already on site making those renovations.

The century old building will be turned into more than 80 mixed–income apartments.

There are also plans to add retail and office space on the first and second floors.

Currently, a few businesses hold leases at the building and at this time there are no plans to remove any of those businesses.

“They want to keep everybody here as they can. So we are still and we love the space,” said Linda Carrillo, Instructor at Personal Best Fitness.

Work on the building started nearly a month ago.

The Construction Superintendent says there have been a few challenges along of the way due to the age of the building.

“When you open walls in an old building like this there’s stuff in the way. Steel is in the way,” said Chris Busch. “You have to do adjustments by the steel beams so we aren’t drilling holes, so it’s constantly adjusting stuff.”

The building was purchased by the Dubin Guru group back in 2017 for $800,000.

the group recently received a nearly $2 million tax–increment financing package to help fund the project.

Rent for the apartments will range between $900 and $1,500 per month.

Since the group received financial support from the city, 20% of their apartments must be offered at affordable rates for households making less than 50% of the area’s average income.

That is a total of more than 15 reduced rate units.

The  developers are hoping to welcome the first tenants by May, but construction isn’t expected to be completed until next September.