Sidewalk Around Kozy Building Closed Off After Falling Bricks

The city of Duluth owns the Kozy building and recently spent $76,000 on clearing out items left inside of the building by the previous owner.

DULUTH, Minn. – The sidewalk at the corner of First Street and Second Avenue has been closed to pedestrian traffic after a pipe became dislodged from the dilapidated Kozy building.

Once city crews arrived, they noticed the bricks from the building were also falling off.

The city of Duluth owns the Kozy building and recently spent $76,000 on clearing out items left inside of the building by the previous owner.

The city wants to tear it down, but litigation between the previous owner Eric Ringsred and the city has prevented any movement on the site.

There is an interested developer out of Iowa who would like to build a multi-use building on the site but these plans need to wait until legal issues are cleared up.

The latest request from the judge was for the former owner to put up $50,000 dollars bond.

There is no timeline on how long the previous owner has to put up the money, however in order to advance the appeal the money needs to be paid.

“This continues to have negative impacts on our public safety whether it’s from our police department or the fire department this has been something that continues to be an issue that we are responding to and so again we are in the middle of litigation right now with the previous owner,” said Kate Van Daele, the Public Information Officer for the City of Duluth.

The city says with all the improvements to the Hart and medical districts the goal for the site is to have a positive impact on Duluth as a whole.