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Earlier today, the heart of downtown Duluth told two stories at once. Along Superior Street, a family ducked into a coffee shop near the NorShor Theatre, laughter trailing behind them. A few blocks away, a storefront window sat covered in brown paper, the “For Lease” sign fading under late-summer sun. Across the avenue, office workers hurried to cars, while a man sat on a bench staring down the sidewalk, nowhere in particular to go.
This mixture of vitality and vacancy, hope and hesitation drew a team of planners to the city last year. Leading them is Southisone S. Garner, a senior project manager with MIG, the consulting firm writing the Imagine Downtown plan. She has guided downtown reinventions in Madison and Milwaukee, but she says Duluth felt different from the start.
“I have to say that it is one of the most charming and unique and welcoming places that I have been,” Garner said. “From the first time that we went last August, I definitely felt that there was a very unique vibe to downtown and the people and the pride in place was one of the things that really stuck with me.”
A process with fingerprints
The Imagine Downtown initiative is designed to be more than another binder on a shelf. Garner said the goal was to capture Duluth’s distinctiveness and turn it into action.
“We always say that these are community-driven plans, and for the projects that I lead and I work on, that is something that I do not just throw out there,” she said. “I make sure that from the beginning to the end that the community has their fingerprints on this, that it is reflective of what it is that they are looking for and they want, and I hope that this plan does that.”
Those fingerprints are everywhere. The draft was informed by focus groups, open houses, surveys, and even sidewalk conversations. Residents spoke about safety, students asked for housing, nonprofits pressed for better coordination, and business owners worried about image and taxes.
“The bad and the ugly really aren’t bad and ugly,” Garner said. “It’s a perspective that now we need to change or now we need to make sure that the solutions and the strategies we have listed are incorporated and really respond to.”
Leadership and coalition
At the core of the process was a steering committee of city officials, county staff, health and human service providers, property owners and arts leaders. Garner described them as passionate, sometimes fiery, but ultimately united.
“When you bring all of those people into a room together who are so passionate about what is happening in their neighborhood and who are some of them, they operate buildings that are seen as iconic in downtown, it can get kind of, the room gets really colorful,” she said. “But the one thing that brought it all together was everybody believed in the future of downtown Duluth.”
Backing the work is a coalition of funders and institutions — Boreal Waters Community Foundation, Knight Foundation, Essentia Health, Minnesota Power, Downtown Duluth, St. Louis County, DEDA, LISC, Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation and Northland Foundation. That level of commitment, Garner said, signals the seriousness of the charge.
The five big moves
The plan is structured around five “big moves” that address perception and reality: public safety, housing, economic development, infrastructure, and everyday services.
“It is a pretty big plan and ambitious, but we wanted to make sure that we were visionary and implementable,” Garner said. “If we do this and you implement these big moves and these other strategies, that lays the foundation for everything else to happen.”
The plan also identifies catalytic projects tailored to districts — the Historic Arts and Theatre District, the civic gateway, Canal Park, Bayfront and the DECC.
“Sometimes it’s just a little bit more manageable and achievable when we start looking at areas and what those projects are that will activate those individual areas,” she said.
Local voices and urgency
Community leaders stress that the outcome matters not just for Duluth, but for the region.
“Downtown is not just the heart of Duluth, but the entire region of northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin,” Mayor Roger Reinert said. “The Imagine Downtown process is about strengthening that core by creating more housing, safer public spaces, and better connections between adjacent districts.”
Business leaders see safety as the starting point.
“For us to accomplish these things in Northeast Minnesota, it is critical that downtown Duluth be seen as the bellwether and hub of that vision. To get there, we must turn the corner on safety,” said Chamber president Matt Baumgartner. “But we cannot become comfortable with the status quo.”
Nonprofits and arts groups point to the opportunity for growth.
“At Zeitgeist we love our downtown neighborhood, but good planning never hurts,” said Tony Cuneo. “If we can help make the neighborhood we love even more vibrant in the future, great.”
Others voice caution.
“Downtown won’t rebound in the absence of significant monetary stimulus,” said Ron Brochu, publisher of BusinessNorth. “Commercial property taxes and the various sales taxes chase investment away, but the taxes will remain until we reduce local and state government bloat.”
And from philanthropy, a call to roll up sleeves.
“Imagine Downtown is about creating a downtown neighborhood this community can be proud of for decades to come,” said Shaun Floerke of Boreal Waters. “Only in working together will we make this happen. No one is going to do it for us.”
The rollout ahead
The plan is being finalized now, with an executive summary in the works. A public rollout will follow in the coming weeks. Garner promised accessibility: the report will be posted online and shared widely through email and social media. Whether there is a formal event will be up to local organizers.
“There’s not a silver bullet,” she said. “That is just one thing we can do that will change everything. But again, the idea is that all of this works together, we are redefining downtown.”
A defining moment
For Duluth, the question is whether this plan becomes another set of good ideas or the start of real change. Past studies have sparked optimism before fading into history. Garner insists this one is different, precisely because of the fingerprints.
“It really does have the community's fingerprints on it,” she said. “We were really able to do that because we had genuine conversations with folks about what’s happening downtown today and its future.”
On Superior Street, the contrast remains: laughter spilling from one door, papered windows a few steps away. The Imagine Downtown plan will not erase that reality overnight. But it offers a vision, backed by community and guided by outside expertise, that says decline is not destiny.
And for now, Duluth waits to see if this latest plan can deliver on what Garner first spotted last summer — the pulse of a city still proud of its downtown.
