A national travel magazine, Travel and Leisure, recently named Grand Marais “America’s Best Small Lake Town.” Over the coming months, it will be buzzing with construction.
Road construction projects dominated the scene in Grand Marais the last few summers, causing problems for parking and pedestrians. This year, unprecedented construction activity across the village on the harbor will also eat up some parking spaces and sidewalks.
Some of these projects started last fall and are just finishing up, and some in the downtown area are just breaking ground.
Great Expectations School
Great Expectations School (GES), located on the east side of town at 550 East 5th Street, began a significant expansion project last October after years of planning and fundraising. GES is a charter school serving students in grades K-8. The expansion maximizes space and will allow for expansion in a second story as the school grows. The project includes six new classrooms and a new kitchen for school meals.
According to the general contractor for the project, local contractor Jerry Starr, school building permits are the most sophisticated you can get. As a school board member, Starr happily works for very little compensation.
The 17,000-square-foot project has an engineered foundation and new water, sewer, and gas line infrastructure. Its total cost is $3.5 million.
“And we’re about 50 percent done,” Starr said. He stated the building will be complete when school starts again this fall.
Most of the building’s materials are bought from a local building supply company. “Cook County Home Center bent over backwards to help us out,” Starr said.
North House Folk School
An educational facility of another kind, North House Folk School, is finishing what it calls a “new front door” at its Grand Marais campus.
North House is building a two-story timber-frame welcome center at the entrance to its campus. According to Executive Director Greg Wright, the building includes the front office and an expanded school store featuring the works of artisan instructors. An upstairs classroom offers sweeping views of the Grand Marais Harbor, and a lake-level classroom connects students with the rest of the campus.
North House veteran and timber frame builder Peter Henrikson designed the project and worked with Tom Healy, one of the first North House instructors, and dozens of volunteers to cut 270 pieces of timber. The two men have worked with a crew of professional timber framers to raise the structure.
The new welcome center will be completed over the summer. Coursework in the building will begin early in the fall, and the building will be dedicated during the folk school’s Unplugged event during the weekend of September 19-21.
Grand Marais City Hall
The city hall and municipal liquor store were built in 1948. They were expanded in 1957 to accommodate the fire and police departments, a county jail, and city council chambers. The liquor store addition and additional office space were built in 1975.
A decade ago, the city retained the architectural firm CR-BPS to assess the structure for needed improvements. At the time, CR-BPS recommended that the cost of rehabilitating the building would exceed the cost of demolishing and rebuilding.
The existing building has approximately 11,000 square feet under the roof, some of which are the old garage space that housed fire trucks and the jail’s sally port. The new building will be slightly smaller overall, but more efficient in its use of space.
The current building’s elevation is at or below street level, placing it in harm’s way when periodic flooding occurs in the area. The new building’s elevation is several feet above the flood stage, protecting its contents from water damage.
Before demolition began, the liquor store opened in its temporary location, the Beaver House on Broadway.
Demolition of the current building will follow asbestos remediation, and construction should begin by early May. McGough Construction of Duluth is the project’s general contractor.
According to Mike Roth, city administrator, the project, which will cost $8.5 million, will be completed in December. Once complete, the new liquor store will double its retail square footage.
During the construction period, city staff will work out of the public works building on the city’s west side. That building is not open to the public. People who need to interact with city staff should contact them by phone and arrange a meeting at another location.
All public meetings will be at the Cook County Courthouse.
The project will use the parking lot on the south side of the building as a staging area. The vehicle charging stations will be relocated to the Rec Park. On-street parking surrounding the building will be closed to create temporary pedestrian walkways.
Fika Coffee
Fika Coffee is a coffee roaster and retailer located in Lutsen. It has acquired a lot in the Cedar Grove Business Park in Grand Marais and is building a 2,500-square-foot building for its roasting business. A studio apartment will be attached to the building to provide worker housing.
Josh Lindstrom has owned Fika Coffee for 11 years. Fika closes its Lutsen retail location three days a week to roast and package coffee for its wholesale customers, online orders, and retail store.
“The new building will enable Fika to grow,” Lindstrom said. “Our Lutsen location is constrained.”
Local contractors Jeff Attleson and Woody Seim are managing construction.
Lindstrom paid cash for the lot in the business park in 2022. Financing combines Northland Foundation grants, SBA, and friend/family loans.
Although the Grand Marais location will not have retail space, Lindstrom said the area in the roasting space may resemble a coffee shop. It will be the roastery’s lab, and Fika’s wholesale customers will be hosted for sampling sessions.
In addition, Lindstrom envisions hosting roastery tours and potential pop-up events.
Crosby Bakery
Crosby Bakery in Grand Marais has operated out of a small kitchen in an old church building at 301 West 1st Street for several years. Owner Hana Crosby grew up in Grand Marais and has been baking her entire life. She built Crosby Bakery into a successful wholesale and special order bakery. Now, she is building a full-service retail bakery.
In the fall of 2021, Hana and Tom Crosby purchased vacant land on Wisconsin Street next to Blue Water Cafe. In December last year, construction began to create a full-service retail bakery with a short-term vacation rental unit above.
Hana expects the retail bakery to open this summer.
Mayhew II
In April 2020, across the street from the Crosby Bakery site, a wind-fueled fire raged through and destroyed three commercial buildings housing retailers White Pine North, Picnic and Pine, and Crooked Spoon.
Since then, the property has been cleared of debris, and Sydney’s Pizza and other food trucks use the vacant land.
Joel Saint John, owner of the Mayhew Inn in Grand Marais, has acquired the parking lot at the corner of Wisconsin Street and 1st Avenue West and the three adjacent lots along Wisconsin Street and will build what is known as Mayhew II starting this fall. Mayhew II will be a 10,000-square-foot building with a restaurant, event space, retail spaces, 10 lodging units, and a rooftop patio.
The Cook County/Grand Marais Economic Development Authority (EDA) was recently granted $400,000 from the Minnesota Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation (IRRR) for infrastructure and site work for the Mayhew project.
Sydney’s Pizza
In April of last year, Sydney’s Pizza experienced a devastating fire at its Broadway location. With a short couple of months before its season was due to begin, Sydney’s owner and local contractor, Bruce Block, acquired two marine-type containers, secured space at 19 Wisconsin Street, the site of Mayhew II, and built a movable restaurant that opened early last summer.
Block said that he would be rehabilitating the fire-damaged remains of the original structure on Broadway this summer and will move the containers, his current pizza kitchen, to the original Sydney’s site by the end of August.
Housing
A 36-unit, three-story apartment building with underground parking will be built on a three-acre parcel east of Up Yonder along Hwy 61. The Cook County Real Estate Fund (CCREF) developed the project. CCREF has 41, mostly local, investment partners. Last year, CCREF renovated the former Birchbark Gifts building in downtown Grand Marais.
Cook County Housing and Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Jason Hale said construction will commence on The Heights this summer. Hale was instrumental in getting an IRRR grant of $630,000 for CCREF to offset construction costs.—Steve Fernlund
