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Consultants present draft five‑year "Imagine Downtown" action plan to city council
Summary
Consultants for Downtown Duluth presented a draft five‑year action plan focusing on safety, housing, connectivity and economic development to make downtown a "neighborhood of vacation." The plan recommends catalytic projects, focus areas, and working groups to move toward implementation; a final plan is expected by July.
Consultants from MIG and Downtown Duluth staff presented a draft Imagine Downtown five‑year action plan to the council in a briefing before the regular meeting. The work, which began the previous summer, organized public input into a set of foundational elements and recommended "big moves" around safety, housing, infrastructure, and economic development.
Jay Rankins, lead consultant, described a three‑phase process of discovery, testing ideas and drafting an action plan that focuses on catalytic projects and prioritized focus areas. Rankins said public engagement included surveys, walking tours, focus groups, six steering‑committee meetings and open houses to shape recommendations.
The draft vision calls for downtown to become a "safe, welcoming, vibrant and prosperous neighborhood," and identifies central goals including safety and comfort, housing to increase residents, improved pedestrian and bicycle experiences, and stronger connections to the lakefront and nearby neighborhoods. A major housing recommendation is creation of a development corporation to pursue 1,500 new residential units downtown aligned with the mayor’s goal and a push for diverse housing types.
Other recommended "big moves" included forming a coordinated clean‑and‑safe partnership among city, police, fire, employers and service providers to address homelessness, mental‑health and public‑drug‑use issues; prioritizing safe walking and biking routes including the skywalk network; and tying K–12 and higher education to workforce development to grow downtown economic activity.
Rankins and consultant Sue Garner highlighted focus areas—Civic Core/transit district, waterfront gateway, downtown core, Canal Park connections and the medical district—and described catalytic projects such as transit‑oriented development near the depot, streetscape enhancements and skywalk improvements. The team said the plan is intended to be achievable within five years and that a final version would be available in July during downtown events and outreach.
Councilors asked about compatibility with long‑range transportation projects and how recommendations would be sequenced. Rankins said the draft generally avoids recommendations that would be precluded by larger regional projects and that many recommended actions are low‑cost or pilotable to avoid rework should a future major infrastructure change occur.
Downtown Duluth staff acknowledged the Boreal Waters Community Foundation provided a matching grant to support the planning process.
