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DULUTH — Titanium Partners is preparing to move ahead with one of its largest Duluth housing developments, reviving a long-delayed plan for a 148-unit apartment complex near Lake Superior College that could be under construction as early as this fall.
The Duluth-based real estate development and investment company announced the project Monday in a Facebook post, saying plans are again moving forward after the development was twice sidelined — first by the COVID-19 pandemic and later by sharply higher interest rates and construction costs.
The proposed five-story complex would include 148 apartments, including 30 affordable units through a partnership with the Duluth Housing and Redevelopment Authority. Those units would be available at 50% of the area median income.
Most of the development would consist of studio apartments, with additional one- and two-bedroom units. Titanium said the project is designed largely for college students and young professionals, putting a substantial new concentration of housing immediately adjacent to the Lake Superior College area.
The proposal still requires Duluth City Council approval and several final pieces involving St. Louis County. If those are secured, construction could begin this fall and take approximately 12 to 16 months to complete.
For Titanium, the development would represent another significant investment in a Duluth portfolio that has expanded steadily across commercial real estate, historic redevelopment, health care, housing and hospitality.
Titanium has become one of the more active redevelopment firms in Duluth, with projects including the Temple Opera Building, The Intrepid, The Njord and the former Ordean Building downtown. The Ordean property was ultimately redeveloped as Force on Fifth Avenue, an extended-stay hospitality property. Titanium has said it has completed well over a dozen economic development projects in downtown Duluth.
The company also led the redevelopment of the former UnitedHealthcare building at 4316 Rice Lake Road into Arrowpointe Medical Center, a multi-tenant medical complex. Titanium CEO Brian Forcier previously estimated about $20 million was invested in that redevelopment, which received the 2024 Minnesota Real Estate Journal award for Best Redevelopment of a Healthcare Facility.
Titanium also has been involved in the former U.S. Bank building at 2000 W. Superior St. in Lincoln Park and owns or manages an expanding collection of commercial properties throughout Duluth. Its current portfolio includes properties along East Superior Street, Maple Grove Road, Rice Lake Road, West Superior Street and the Duluth Airpark area.
The company describes itself as a Duluth-based commercial real estate investment, development and asset-management firm. Titanium's website says it has been involved in more than 300 projects, approximately 700,000 square feet of commercial real estate and more than $800 million in transactions.
The Lake Superior College development, however, would push Titanium more heavily into one of Duluth's most pressing development issues: housing.
The project has been years in the making.
Titanium originally planned to break ground in 2020 before the pandemic disrupted financing, construction and development markets. The proposal resurfaced later, only to be delayed again as borrowing costs and construction prices increased.
Titanium has continued working with Duluth planners on the development. Earlier this year, the company publicly disclosed that it was revisiting a housing project that would bring nearly 150 units to Duluth and said it had been working closely with city planning officials for months.
Now, the company says the window to build may be narrowing.
“With interest rates likely on the rise again soon, it’s feeling like now or never for this project,” Titanium said in Monday's Facebook announcement.
The development would also bring an affordable component to a project otherwise targeted heavily toward students and younger workers. Thirty of the 148 apartments — more than 20% of the project — would be offered at the 50% area median income level through the HRA partnership.
That combination gives the proposal considerably more weight than another conventional apartment development. It would add nearly 150 housing units near one of Duluth's largest educational institutions while putting affordable apartments into the same development as market-rate housing.
If the remaining government approvals fall into place and construction begins this fall, the apartment complex could be completed sometime in late 2027 or early 2028.
For Titanium Partners, it would also mark another major step in a decade-long strategy of buying, redeveloping and putting difficult or underused Duluth properties back into productive use — this time with housing rather than another commercial or hospitality project.
