Ribbon cutting December 2019
Additional Information
Ribbon Cutting
Updated: December 20, 2019
Builders, investors, and prospective residents were thrilled to walk through City View Flats Friday afternoon during an open house. Ground was broken on the 106 unit apartment complex, made possible by funding from the City Of Duluth and St. Louis County, in September 2018.
“It’s fantastic. The closest thing I could imagine ,and I can’t imagine because I’m not a woman is giving birth. It’s something that I’m extremely proud of,” Marshall Jackson, President of MBJ Development said. “The credit goes to the team that I put together to work on this and they all did a phenomenal job."
Located near bus lines and businesses, City View Flats offers a variety of floor plans including studios, one bedroom,and two bedrooms. The City of Duluth and St. Louis County invested in the family and pet-friendly apartment complex with the hope that it would provide people more housing options.
“We’re just a short walk—basically a five minute walk to Downtown Duluth and Canal Park, so we’re very well located and I think that is definitely what the City of Duluth needed is a beautiful building, such as, City View in this location,” Jackson said.
Already, people have moved into City View Flats ,and more have applied to live there. Jackson anticipates two to three or four people living in each unit, so ultimately, it could be home to three or four hundred.
“Tours are available any time you like. We’re open. We have started to rent up now and we have some tenants here. Just yesterday, two of them took me aside and said ‘Marshall, I just love living here. I’ve only been here a couple of days, but this is the best place I’ve ever lived,’ so I think it’s a great environment, has the amenities that are going to make people happy and that they’re looking for,” Jackson said.
Rent starts around $1000 and Jackson says amenities include underground parking, a car wash, a gym, a sauna, an all season’s hot tub, grills, a small dog run and a rooftop view of the lake and the city.
“Our units are quite large and roomy and we welcome dogs and cats and of course, we love children,” Jackson said.
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Local View: Drive the economy with strong private sector
For more than 15 years, APEX has been the business-development engine for the private sector in Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin. APEX investor-members represent many industries and comprise some of the largest and most influential organizations in the region. They work together to strengthen our economy through a shared, vested interest in the attraction, expansion, and retention of business.
We have such great potential here, and if we all work together we can realize that potential. Our success relies heavily on building a next-generation workforce, ensuring that housing exists to meet market needs, and supporting job growth in a thriving private sector. When we collaborate to solve issues like these, we win.
First, we need to renew our focus on education, training, and a strong workforce. APEX and several partners, including the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB), regional workforce centers, foundations, and Minnesota Power have joined together to assess the region's workforce skills, better understand the needs of business, and formulate solutions to help develop skill sets and encourage a fully engaged regional labor force. Initiatives like these are prime examples of the public and private sectors working together to solve problems common to all of us.
Second, we need a variety of housing. Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, drove this point home during his keynote address at the Regional Economic Indicators Forum in Duluth in April. The availability of housing for the next-generation workforce is a key asset in attracting talent to a community. Projects like CityView Flats are a great start. We applaud MBJ Development, the city of Duluth, and the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency for their efforts to develop workforce housing. Variety is essential, including affordable, market-rate, and multi-family options. If the workforce can't find affordable options to live here, they'll have to find work outside the region.
Third, we need private-sector job growth to thrive. Jobs and income lead to taxable revenue for our state, which in turn strengthens our economy. APEX actively pursues growth in the aviation, technology, manufacturing and fabrication, mining, and forest-products industries, as their jobs provide some of the highest wages, best benefits, and greatest overall impact to the regional economy. We work closely with partners such as the Development Association in Superior, Itasca Economic Development Corporation, Great River Energy, Minnesota Power, growth-oriented cities, and state leaders to develop the compelling business case for investment and growth.
Make no mistake; challenges exist. But new opportunities also arise frequently. We're seeing an influx of businesses looking to start or expand here. They're attracted to the area by our educated workforce, vast natural resources, and quality of place.
At APEX, our mission is to leverage private-sector resources to drive investment throughout this great region. We find success by bringing these resources together in a research-driven, strategic manner, positioning the business and the regional communities for long-term success.
When job creators and public-sector leaders collaborate, we all succeed. Regardless of industry, we all share similar goals for sustainable growth and shared prosperity.
Let's set aside issues that may divide us and instead focus on providing family-supporting jobs that sustain our communities, our economy, our environment, and our way of life.
Brian W. Hanson is president and CEO of APEX (apexgetsbusiness.com), a private force in Duluth for economic development.
Duluth's Essentia Health plans state's biggest medical expansion project
Essentia's record expansion will include a massive new medical center.
Christopher Snowbeck Star Tribune May 25, 2018
An $800 million project announced Thursday would replace Duluth’s biggest hospital while also making renovations to related facilities across its downtown campus over the next four years.
Duluth-based Essentia Health said it will build a new St. Mary’s Medical Center plus a clinic building and an outpatient surgery center as part of a plan called “Vision Northland,” which hospital officials say is the largest private development in Duluth’s history.
The health system plans to spend $675 million on new facilities that span 800,000 square feet, plus $125 million for renovation of existing buildings, site preparation and financing costs.
“Our facilities that we’re currently using were built many years ago,” Dr. David Herman, the chief executive at Essentia Health, said in an interview. “We’re making our facilities work right now. But as we look forward ... our facilities likely will not be able to support the future practice of medicine much longer.”
The development is the largest in a string of hospital projects in Minnesota announced over the past year or so, including $217 million for improvements at Mayo Clinic’s St. Marys hospital campus in Rochester.
Between 2007 and 2016, the biggest health care capital expenditure reported to the Minnesota Department of Health was $281.8 million for facility construction and remodeling at Children’s Minnesota, the state’s largest pediatric hospital. Mayo Clinic in 2001 added more than 1.5 million square feet of space at a cost of nearly $500 million.
In December, Essentia Health first announced a strategic planning effort that included transforming the health system’s campus in Duluth. Details were made public this spring as state and local officials tried, but failed, at the Legislature to connect the hospital project to a broader economic development initiative like the state’s Destination Medical Center effort in Rochester.
Thursday’s announcement signified that the health system’s board of directors has signed off on the $800 million investment, according to a spokeswoman.
Essentia Health runs 15 hospitals and 75 clinics across Idaho, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. With about 15,000 employees, Essentia in 2017 posted $151.4 million in net income on about $2 billion in revenue.
The health system said it is still finalizing schematic designs and a master construction plan. Project completion is expected in 2022. It would reduce Essentia Health’s overall footprint in the eastern portion of downtown Duluth in hopes of spurring new development.
Herman, the chief executive, said Essentia in Duluth was built over many years through a series of mergers that brought together St. Mary’s, the Duluth Clinic and Miller-Dwan Medical Center. Those three facilities and related buildings create a campus that currently spans about six bocks, Herman said.
The replacement hospital for St. Mary’s would be built within Essentia’s existing campus footprint, but two blocks closer to Lake Superior. The health system on Thursday released a rendering that suggests the new facility would offer sweeping views of the lake, although officials cautioned against taking the picture too literally since details might change.
The price tag for the new hospital is big, but Essentia Health officials believe it’s more effective to build a new facility than to keep renovating the existing hospital, portions of which date to the 1920s.
Modern hospitals have bigger operating rooms that can better house equipment and cooling systems that can handle the heat given off by the many computer systems that now run in ORs, Herman said. Currently, many of the hospital rooms at St. Mary’s are double occupancy, whereas the new facility would offer more private rooms for patients.
“When you look at the requirements for equipment and keeping people close together, there was no real way to be able to do that in the old medical center,” Herman said. “As a matter of fact, as we redesigned new operating rooms we had to decommission the floor right above them to make the operating rooms taller in order to accommodate the equipment and the lighting that’s required for the modern operating room.”
With a new building, Essentia Health plans on incorporating not just the latest in health care technology, but also consumer technology like the “smart speaker” called Alexa from online retail giant Amazon.com Inc.
“All of our hospitalized patients can choose the meal that they want,” Herman said. “Does that require somebody being at the other end of the phone, or can you just use a technology like Alexa to be able to order your meal?”
Duluth City Council Seeks Grant for new 96-unit apartment building
Duluth City Council could seek grant for new 96-unit apartment building
By Peter Passi on Jan 17, 2018 at 7:45 p.m.
A new 96-unit apartment building soon could be on the horizon for Duluth's Central Hillside neighborhood.
But the would-be developer of the proposed $20 million CityView Flats project, MBJ Development Corp., is seeking a financial leg up from the city. On Monday, the Duluth City Council will consider a resolution that would authorize city staff to apply for an $800,000 Workforce Housing Grant from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. The same resolution also would offer conditional approval of a plan for the city to abate $300,000 in taxes, to be matched with another $300,000 from St. Louis County. The full, combined $600,000 value of the tax abatement packages should be achieved in about 10 years, and after that time, all future property taxes would be collected in full. The proposed 3- to 4-story apartment building at 333 N. First Ave. W., would offer underground parking, according to Heather Rand, Duluth's business development director.
"This developer has wanted to move forward with a project like this for quite awhile. He believes there's a strong market for workforce housing here," Rand said. If the grant request proves successful, Rand said construction of the new building could begin this spring.
But Rand pointed out that Duluth likely will face stiff competition, as just $4 million will be made available for workforce housing grants statewide, and the requested grant for CityView Flats would represent 20 percent of that sum.
"We think multiple cities will submit this year, because there's such a need for this type of housing and all types of housing throughout the state," she said.
Nevertheless, Rand believes Duluth can make a strong case for the CityView Flats project. She noted that the vacancy rate for rental housing in Duluth has been sitting at 3 percent for two years running. Rand said a number of local employers are expected to write letters in support of the project, which could provide needed housing for workers in Duluth.
If built, nine of the building's 96 market-rate units are expected to be smaller rent-restricted apartment
Hillside apartment complex on the rise
By Brady Slater on Feb 15, 2019 at 5:56 p.m.
The appearance of construction cranes in Duluth always draws attention.
A pair of cranes operating in the Central Hillside neighborhood of Duluth are there to assist with the construction of the $18-million, 105-unit CityView Flats, which are scheduled to open Sept. 1.
"We brought in a second crane to help speed up the process," said Nate Huber, vice president of MBJ Development Corp. of Minneapolis. "With all the weather and snow, it's been a little rough."
CityView Flats is being built into the hillside across from the Steve O'Neil Apartments on West Fourth Street. The four-story apartment complex (333 N. First Ave. W.) will feature studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments — most at market rate. Ten units have been set aside as rent restricted.
For business observers, the project will bring a much-needed infusion of housing to the neighborhood.
"We have a lot of low to moderate housing in the downtown area," said Brian Hanson, CEO of business development group APEX. "Having a mix would include more market rate and that would be good for the downtown area. We have needs across all categories — all categories are vital in our community."
A 2017 study found the city needed about 2,000 more rental units across all income levels.
For the CityView Flats developers, the desire was to bring "luxury apartments" to within walking distance of Canal Park and the downtown.
To live up to the billing, CityView Flats will include lower-level indoor, heated parking, a fitness center and sauna, high-end appliances, and the finishing flourish — an all-season rooftop party room, hot tub and deck. Lined with glass railings, the deck will feature grilling stations and a bonfire pit with seating.
"It's going to be a great space with a great view of Lake Superior and downtown Duluth," Huber said. "We thought we would bring a building that had high-end amenities. We wanted it to be a good fit for professionals — with the hospital expansion in mind."
MBJ has experience in the Northland already, operating Cascade Springs apartment complex in downtown Duluth and Woodgate Apartments in Cloquet.
Neither of those affordable-housing complexes features rents approaching what the costs will be at CityView Flats, where a one-bedroom will go for $1,355 per month or a rent-controlled $940 per month.
So far, construction, which began in September, has included the precast concrete parking garage being put in and a build out of the first-floor offices and communal spaces.
Johnson Wilson Constructors is in the process of doing the floor-by-floor wood framing.
The development of CityView Flats was aided by a $180,000 grant from the Minnesota Finance Housing Agency. Also, both St. Louis County and the city of Duluth agreed to tax abatement totaling $800,000 in order to help facilitate the development. Once it's back on the tax rolls, it's expected to generate $195,000 annually in property taxes.
When making the case for abatement, the city administration noted the city's shortage of workforce housing.
"I can see the cranes from my window," Hanson said. "Projects that can support our medical industry and thriving downtown are important."