Roger Reinert, Mayor, City of Duluth
Roger Reinert, mayor of the city of Duluth, talked to Invest: about how the city continues to prioritize residents’ needs amid economic growth, namely through focusing on expanding housing, amplifying Duluth’s natural resources, and maintaining and developing amenities for community members.
What have been the main highlights and key milestones for Duluth in the last 12 months?
Last year was my first in office, and I entered with five key goals: housing across all income levels, growing our commercial tax base, focusing on streets and utilities, focusing on our downtown, and being cognizant of the affordability of property taxes. I am proud of the accomplishments we’ve achieved so far in each of these areas.
We broke ground on a major housing development that will take about a decade to fully build out but which will add around 1,500 units of housing to our community across income levels. We are short on housing, which results in overpaying for existing housing. Our population has been relatively stagnant since 1980, but we have seen growth in our greater metropolitan service area. People are moving to the area; they are just not living in Duluth because we do not have housing options.
On the tax base side, we are seeing a $300 million investment in a long-standing paper facility. We are a regional center dedicated to natural resources, and a further strategic advantage of Duluth is that we are a transportation center. Companies want to develop warehouses here and then ship throughout the upper Midwest. We are unique in that we have access to rail, road, an international airport, and shipping. Few communities have all of these multimodal transportation connections.
What are the primary sectors and industries driving growth in the city?
One of the challenges Duluth has had in the recent past is a sense that we were a regional center disconnected from our region. We have two regions – northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin, and together with Superior Wisconsin, we are the twin ports. It’s imperative that we are a regional center that is connected to our entire region.
Duluth thrives on a handful of economic sectors, and each of these helped us through the recession and pandemic. These industries continue to provide economic and job growth. Healthcare is the first of these industries, and we have two major providers headquartered here through Essentia and Aspirus. They are the largest employer north of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Higher education is another driver of growth, with multiple higher education institutions located here. Transportation also drives growth through rail, the airport and the Port of Duluth, as shipping on the Great Lakes is a massive economic activity here. Duluth also punches above its weight with tourism due to brand recognition, despite our size. Secondary and tertiary businesses based on natural resources are also integral to our community, with water quality and testing and related engineering and manufacturing. Aviation is another major industry here.
How does Duluth leverage support from the state legislature to accomplish the city’s goals and objectives?
Firstly, we would start with what our city’s philosophy is from an economic development standpoint. I feel passionately that we are not the ones who go out to find and make deals; our role is to be good partners for the dealmakers in our community. We have a robust business community here. Our connection with our county and state partners oftentimes revolves around our ability to help secure grants or investment dollars for projects, along with our ability to use different financing packages that help recover upfront infrastructure site prep costs on major developments. We use TIF (tax increment financing) as well as tax abatement to accomplish this. In terms of state economic development and cleanup dollars, it’s many times easier and at times necessary for the city to be the agent who applies for and receives those on behalf of local projects. One current project involves redevelopment of an old industrial pier that is now a prime site for housing and retail and a program from the University of Minnesota.
How do you maintain a balance between preserving the local community feel while at the same time embracing modernization and growth?
We accomplish this through being intentional with planning and zoning. Duluthians love that we have strong neighborhoods with unique geographies and characters. Our city is 26 miles long and is located on the shore of Lake Superior. Our neighborhoods grew alongside the developing railroad, shipping, steel, and cement industries. We have an obligation to grow while maintaining the neighborhoods’ identities, which we achieve through communicating with our residents.
How is the city working to enhance its appeal as a destination for new residents, especially in terms of amenities, services, and quality of life?
Housing is a huge issue. We have a great community that is attractive on its own but which does not have an adequate selection across the housing portfolio. That means that those with more resources are able to pay more for the housing that is available, which raises the overall value of the existing housing stock and prices more people out of the market. We have to add housing at all income levels and in a variety of places throughout the community.
We intentionally lean into our natural resources as an asset in terms of amenities. We have 10,000 wooded acres with hundreds of miles of hiking and biking trails. In the winter, we have cross-country ski trails, and these amenities are our competitive market advantage. Duluth is known as a city to visit if you want to experience the outdoors in all four seasons and be active outside. It is incredibly important that we value these assets and not lose what naturally makes Duluth a destination of choice.
Lastly, the city still needs to be mindful of what people expect from a community of roughly 90,000 people. We are halfway through a process where we are evaluating our parks and recreational assets within the community. Maintaining traditional public parks that are accessible to each segment of our community has been a priority through this analysis, as well as athletic facilities, especially as we navigate the possibility of expanding to add indoor turf.
