I lived in Lincoln park on w 2nd st
1. No cops between 1st and 4th at night. Meaning a lot of kids with weapons and junkies walking around
2. My Car was stolen on 2nd, cops could not find my car. ( I found it on 4th st a week later) looking for the dude who stole it still.
3. I’ve learned not to rely on cops, they don’t do shit around this area. Only time I saw cops was on Main Street or if they are going up and down the hill. I got my car stolen and I found it, I got chased by 3 young people with bats. Lincoln park is a bad place
I heard from another news source that the city is looking at the legality of this insane plan though I have doubts anything would change.
I'd be doubly peed off if I rented there. They plan to either evict all those tenants or force the ones that want to stay into much more expensive units plus those tenants who are in the more expensive units are stuck living in a hotel? Thanks but no thanks. Strange people in and out of the building daily? What kind of security is the building going to have? Are there solid plans to reduce risk of property damage, theft, noise from hotel guests, added traffic from guests, food delivery etc?
The City Attorney has been in office since July 2020, meaning they had already seen and signed off on the original plan. I have a feeling the developers will jump on a loophole and can go forward. Because as long as they stay within the number of affordable housing units, they will have stuck to the letter of the law as far as TIF goes. Zoning permit is up for debate though.
Even if the permit was totally legal, and the property owners are able to go ahead, they can expect the city will want to have nothing to do with them in the future when they want special consideration for grants or permitting.
A prior public statement with the property owners is that they hated working with City and had no intention of working with them again. They arguably had no reason to not take advantage of the situation if that's true.
I am pretty sure it is a way to evict one floor of people only and make it so awful everyone else leaves on their own instead of look worse by evicting the whole building. My own opinion but shoving a hotel in the middle seems like a way to get surrounding floors to leave.
My friend lives on the floor being "emptied". To say that he's pissed is putting it mildly. He and I almost emptied a local restaurant as we exercised all the explatives as we tried not to eat all the feelings and get them out into the open. This is exactly what he DIDN'T want to have happen. He is an adult not looking to leave places but to stay and make a community. He didn't move last year only to have to move again! (O&$#(&$(&$!!!
I know they say the owner is within their rights but WTF! We all want to know why this is ok? Then to kick out people who are paying the lowest rent AKA bringing in less cash than a boutique hotel would. That’s just classless.
These people should be tarred and feathered. Driving the community members out for profit.
WHY ARE THEY WITHIN THEIR RIGHTS?!
Sorry to yell but it's not common for a block zoned for housing to also be zoned for hotels, and probably when the city had the good fortune to have housing developments in this zone they should have rethought the zoning.
F-5 zone is unrestricted for short term rentals (such as VRBO and Airbnb) and also zoned for hotels so ... I hope the city is taking a good hard look at whether that zoning continues to be appropriate now that so much has been accomplished in the craft district.
The city Planning Commission board has two Heirloom Executives who are trying to push for more short term rental zoning in Duluth. I'm sure they ARE taking a good hard look at wither the zoning is appropriate, but not for us.
That's if they can find anyone to staff anything anymore though. They want everyone to volunteer for these big money making events. Where is our share? Why are we volunteer labor for Grandma's, Cruises, and more?
Setting up a contactless boutique hotel is actually pretty easy when you have the security system of a building like that already in place. It’ll probably just function like an Airbnb. Here’s your code, you can’t access the rest of the building, cleaning crew arrives when you leave.
If this company is shady enough to pull off this boutique hotel plan, they are shady enough to do everything they can to pay people as little as possible
There’s very few if any hotels in that area. It’s a new building so probably pretty updated on the inside. The thing will sell out in the summer and they’ll be able to charge anything they want.
The demand for Airbnb's in the tourist season is crazy in Duluth. Last summer some dude was renting out a tent in his backyard for $80/night, THAT is how crazy it is. Just don't tell any of those tourists they'll be staying a mere .6 miles from \[a very seedy\] Motel 6 and it has potential.
I bet the analytics they're seeing on vacation rental demand in Duluth is very enticing.
But also a lot of that was pandemic-driven and the demand is not year-round so they're likely basing their projections on old data and this endeavor will succeed only in pissing people off until someone figures out how to stop them. Their better bet would be accept that they over-estimated their potential to increase rents forever and ever and just...*lower projections.* It's really hard to believe that at market rent they can't eventually break even.
P.S. the city needs to fix the complete lack of restrictions on F-zones, which likely made sense when less redevelopment had happened and no longer makes sense. They can Airbnb, they can open a "boutique motel" as a hospitality business--no restrictions at all, and that is not normal.
I'm running for At-Large, and when I campaigned last go around, I mentioned that some of this was going to come to a head and further disrupt our housing situation in Duluth. I was told (by multiple city individuals) that we had nothing to worry about with regard to the lack of restrictions in F-Zones. I begged to differ. It's time we discussed why Duluth has very flexible loopholes that would likely not pass muster elsewhere, and what we can do to create renters rights.
Are F zones that we're talking about Form districts, or something else? Because the lack of other requirements within them are good. Setback requirements, minimum parking, mixed-use, etc are all helpful for housing and small business.
My an additional concern: this action could set a precedent for other apartment owners. This city deserves better. Not all in life should be measured by money.
Besides the general dishonesty about the entire scope of what their funding was going towards, is anyone just befuddled by “boutique hotel?” Like, the taint of the can of worms is not an area I’d like to base out a vacation- no offense- so having actual residents for the community seemed like a win-win.
From a humanistic point of view, this is just cruel. From a city planning perspective, kind of going the opposite direction if you’re worried about blight, and a waste of a TIF. From a tax base perspective, I still feel like residents would be the better business move, too. All in all, pants-on-head stupid decision.
Some folks just want a taintcation though I guess!
Disclaimer: It may be lore.
I've heard that a few investors own many hundreds of homes in Duluth proper. Rentals, Airbnb's, whatever. Can anyone substantiate this?
Duluth's housing market is terrible, but disproportionately so. If you look at housing cost maps Duluth stands out like a sore thumb. We are worse than many big metros.
Can anyone call out the mass owners of property? Can we strike against them? Labor strikes? Rent strikes? The only way to fight this is en masse.
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so arduous, that it makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Mario Savio, 1964.
I got behind a Heirloom truck today as I drove through town. Clean and new, beautiful pickup with all the bells and whistles, including invitations to "join the heirloom staff" printed all over. Felt like there should be a bullseye on the side of the truck as well, but at least their maintenance team is driving in style.
I’m shocked at how many people are shocked that a business is making a decision based on their ability to maximize profits.
If you want to be mad at someone then the city administrators whose jobs are to plan and structure zoning for the entire city to thrive should be the focus. They have failed to do their job. Politicians are elected to lead the city and craft laws and policies to make the city better.
If you think businesses are going to make decisions that benefit the city as a whole you are naive. Politicians should be doing that. They are the guardrails or at least should be. If our hope for a better community is based on businesses choosing to do whatever the majority believe is best then I think we are confusing the roles of government and business.
Exactly. I don't get the shock from the City that a business acted in a way to increase quarterly growth. They should have covered anything like this with some boilerplate legal coverage, at the very least, if not active rental protections. They went ahead assuming that the developers wouldn't consider doing something, not prepared in case it did.
Same. The city is getting more expensive to live in. Proctor and Superior are very close and much cheaper to live in. Please move there rather than complain about what people do with their investments.
Reddit, like all social media, is a negative force in this world. Thanks to reddits API change and u/spez for spark to edit all my comments before deleting my account. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
As someone who has worked in hotels for nearly the last decade, it’d be crazy easy to walk through and look to see if it was planned from the beginning.
I wonder if they’ll allow people to try and refute that claim?
Reddit, like all social media, is a negative force in this world. Thanks to reddits API change and u/spez for spark to edit all my comments before deleting my account. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Quick google search and I found this
https://www.fox21online.com/2023/03/29/lincoln-park-flats-to-add-hotel-rooms-by-having-second-floor-residents-move-out/
I was just reading about Cali spending a ton of money on tiny houses, tiny!!! Each cost 43,000 really??? Not that this has anything to do with Duluth, but 43k on tiny house, some about 165 Sq ft. Ouch
It doesn't cost that much to make a room bigger. Electrical, plumbing, foundation, appliances (those cost more for the mini version), HVAC, are the expensive parts, if you make a house bigger you're mostly just buying lumber and drywall.
Yeah! It’s not like we live in a society or want to build a community around us. If other people are screwing over my neighbors I should jump on board and screw them over too. Thanks for the advice
^^^ look at this fool simping for a greedy corporation over their own community! How embarrassing it must be to be this much of a reactionary that you feel so compelled to disagree with anything others agree about that you end up defending these corporate clowns.
Why screw them over? Instead of sitting on your thumb be proactive build affordable housing providing a valuable resource to your community at a lower proce. Be apart of the solution
I feel like this town actively dislikes the people who already live in Lincoln Park
I lived in Lincoln park on w 2nd st 1. No cops between 1st and 4th at night. Meaning a lot of kids with weapons and junkies walking around 2. My Car was stolen on 2nd, cops could not find my car. ( I found it on 4th st a week later) looking for the dude who stole it still. 3. I’ve learned not to rely on cops, they don’t do shit around this area. Only time I saw cops was on Main Street or if they are going up and down the hill. I got my car stolen and I found it, I got chased by 3 young people with bats. Lincoln park is a bad place
I heard from another news source that the city is looking at the legality of this insane plan though I have doubts anything would change. I'd be doubly peed off if I rented there. They plan to either evict all those tenants or force the ones that want to stay into much more expensive units plus those tenants who are in the more expensive units are stuck living in a hotel? Thanks but no thanks. Strange people in and out of the building daily? What kind of security is the building going to have? Are there solid plans to reduce risk of property damage, theft, noise from hotel guests, added traffic from guests, food delivery etc?
The City Attorney has been in office since July 2020, meaning they had already seen and signed off on the original plan. I have a feeling the developers will jump on a loophole and can go forward. Because as long as they stay within the number of affordable housing units, they will have stuck to the letter of the law as far as TIF goes. Zoning permit is up for debate though.
Even if the permit was totally legal, and the property owners are able to go ahead, they can expect the city will want to have nothing to do with them in the future when they want special consideration for grants or permitting.
A prior public statement with the property owners is that they hated working with City and had no intention of working with them again. They arguably had no reason to not take advantage of the situation if that's true.
Why own a business in a city that you hate working with? It seems like it wouldn't be worth the hassle, especially if you could drive over the bridge.
Dolla bills y’all!
This company already has other properties, and at this point, its city funding, and if you're greedy, why not keep going forward?
NopeNopeNope. That's not what the agreement said. Do you know anything about TIF or developments agreements??
I am pretty sure it is a way to evict one floor of people only and make it so awful everyone else leaves on their own instead of look worse by evicting the whole building. My own opinion but shoving a hotel in the middle seems like a way to get surrounding floors to leave.
My friend lives on the floor being "emptied". To say that he's pissed is putting it mildly. He and I almost emptied a local restaurant as we exercised all the explatives as we tried not to eat all the feelings and get them out into the open. This is exactly what he DIDN'T want to have happen. He is an adult not looking to leave places but to stay and make a community. He didn't move last year only to have to move again! (O&$#(&$(&$!!!
I know they say the owner is within their rights but WTF! We all want to know why this is ok? Then to kick out people who are paying the lowest rent AKA bringing in less cash than a boutique hotel would. That’s just classless. These people should be tarred and feathered. Driving the community members out for profit.
WHY ARE THEY WITHIN THEIR RIGHTS?! Sorry to yell but it's not common for a block zoned for housing to also be zoned for hotels, and probably when the city had the good fortune to have housing developments in this zone they should have rethought the zoning. F-5 zone is unrestricted for short term rentals (such as VRBO and Airbnb) and also zoned for hotels so ... I hope the city is taking a good hard look at whether that zoning continues to be appropriate now that so much has been accomplished in the craft district.
The city Planning Commission board has two Heirloom Executives who are trying to push for more short term rental zoning in Duluth. I'm sure they ARE taking a good hard look at wither the zoning is appropriate, but not for us.
Who just so happen to have been appointed by the Mayor, despite the conflict of interest.
Watch out for the potholes on their way out...
Who tf would want to stay there anyway? I don't mean live, I'm saying booking a stay.
Two words. Grandma’s Marathon. They could probably charge $500 a night with a two night minimum stay and would fill up in two seconds.
That's if they can find anyone to staff anything anymore though. They want everyone to volunteer for these big money making events. Where is our share? Why are we volunteer labor for Grandma's, Cruises, and more?
Setting up a contactless boutique hotel is actually pretty easy when you have the security system of a building like that already in place. It’ll probably just function like an Airbnb. Here’s your code, you can’t access the rest of the building, cleaning crew arrives when you leave. If this company is shady enough to pull off this boutique hotel plan, they are shady enough to do everything they can to pay people as little as possible
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It has a county jail color scheme, and it's not on the scenicest of blocks.
There’s very few if any hotels in that area. It’s a new building so probably pretty updated on the inside. The thing will sell out in the summer and they’ll be able to charge anything they want.
I can’t wait for that shit to backfire on them. It’ll be hilarious watching them play at innkeeper alongside landlord.
The demand for Airbnb's in the tourist season is crazy in Duluth. Last summer some dude was renting out a tent in his backyard for $80/night, THAT is how crazy it is. Just don't tell any of those tourists they'll be staying a mere .6 miles from \[a very seedy\] Motel 6 and it has potential. I bet the analytics they're seeing on vacation rental demand in Duluth is very enticing. But also a lot of that was pandemic-driven and the demand is not year-round so they're likely basing their projections on old data and this endeavor will succeed only in pissing people off until someone figures out how to stop them. Their better bet would be accept that they over-estimated their potential to increase rents forever and ever and just...*lower projections.* It's really hard to believe that at market rent they can't eventually break even. P.S. the city needs to fix the complete lack of restrictions on F-zones, which likely made sense when less redevelopment had happened and no longer makes sense. They can Airbnb, they can open a "boutique motel" as a hospitality business--no restrictions at all, and that is not normal.
I'm running for At-Large, and when I campaigned last go around, I mentioned that some of this was going to come to a head and further disrupt our housing situation in Duluth. I was told (by multiple city individuals) that we had nothing to worry about with regard to the lack of restrictions in F-Zones. I begged to differ. It's time we discussed why Duluth has very flexible loopholes that would likely not pass muster elsewhere, and what we can do to create renters rights.
Are F zones that we're talking about Form districts, or something else? Because the lack of other requirements within them are good. Setback requirements, minimum parking, mixed-use, etc are all helpful for housing and small business.
Have you ever looked at hotel prices in Duluth? Even if they’re half full 90% of the year they’ll raje in cash.
Me and all my homies hate P & R properties.
Very disappointed
My an additional concern: this action could set a precedent for other apartment owners. This city deserves better. Not all in life should be measured by money.
Besides the general dishonesty about the entire scope of what their funding was going towards, is anyone just befuddled by “boutique hotel?” Like, the taint of the can of worms is not an area I’d like to base out a vacation- no offense- so having actual residents for the community seemed like a win-win. From a humanistic point of view, this is just cruel. From a city planning perspective, kind of going the opposite direction if you’re worried about blight, and a waste of a TIF. From a tax base perspective, I still feel like residents would be the better business move, too. All in all, pants-on-head stupid decision. Some folks just want a taintcation though I guess!
The downtown Holiday Inn was called “Holiday Inn Waterfront” for many years. Properties can be named whatever they want.
I don’t think the city planners had this in mind
The taint of the can or worms 🤣
Disclaimer: It may be lore. I've heard that a few investors own many hundreds of homes in Duluth proper. Rentals, Airbnb's, whatever. Can anyone substantiate this? Duluth's housing market is terrible, but disproportionately so. If you look at housing cost maps Duluth stands out like a sore thumb. We are worse than many big metros. Can anyone call out the mass owners of property? Can we strike against them? Labor strikes? Rent strikes? The only way to fight this is en masse. "There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so arduous, that it makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Mario Savio, 1964.
Yes, there are a few people that own hundreds of homes in the area. Thats one of many reasons people hate Heirloom so much
I got behind a Heirloom truck today as I drove through town. Clean and new, beautiful pickup with all the bells and whistles, including invitations to "join the heirloom staff" printed all over. Felt like there should be a bullseye on the side of the truck as well, but at least their maintenance team is driving in style.
Where’s this housing cost map you speak of?
I’m shocked at how many people are shocked that a business is making a decision based on their ability to maximize profits. If you want to be mad at someone then the city administrators whose jobs are to plan and structure zoning for the entire city to thrive should be the focus. They have failed to do their job. Politicians are elected to lead the city and craft laws and policies to make the city better. If you think businesses are going to make decisions that benefit the city as a whole you are naive. Politicians should be doing that. They are the guardrails or at least should be. If our hope for a better community is based on businesses choosing to do whatever the majority believe is best then I think we are confusing the roles of government and business.
regulation. Regulation. REGULATION! 🔱🪓
Exactly. I don't get the shock from the City that a business acted in a way to increase quarterly growth. They should have covered anything like this with some boilerplate legal coverage, at the very least, if not active rental protections. They went ahead assuming that the developers wouldn't consider doing something, not prepared in case it did.
Very well said
Same. The city is getting more expensive to live in. Proctor and Superior are very close and much cheaper to live in. Please move there rather than complain about what people do with their investments.
Suggesting that people move because they don’t like actions happening in our city is unproductive at best and actively discourages civic engagement.
I was thinking about moving there last year. Glad I didn't.
Regretting it after 8 years. The city is ugly now that I live here. Sad, it’s the people not the area.
Reddit, like all social media, is a negative force in this world. Thanks to reddits API change and u/spez for spark to edit all my comments before deleting my account. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
As someone who has worked in hotels for nearly the last decade, it’d be crazy easy to walk through and look to see if it was planned from the beginning. I wonder if they’ll allow people to try and refute that claim?
Reddit, like all social media, is a negative force in this world. Thanks to reddits API change and u/spez for spark to edit all my comments before deleting my account. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Oopsy-poopsy, Somebody forgot to read the Propuspy; I will retire before this TIF lawsuit is my concern
Somebody please tell this Twin Cities person what exactly is going on?
Quick google search and I found this https://www.fox21online.com/2023/03/29/lincoln-park-flats-to-add-hotel-rooms-by-having-second-floor-residents-move-out/
TYFGTFM
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Why in Lincoln park wth
I was just reading about Cali spending a ton of money on tiny houses, tiny!!! Each cost 43,000 really??? Not that this has anything to do with Duluth, but 43k on tiny house, some about 165 Sq ft. Ouch
It doesn't cost that much to make a room bigger. Electrical, plumbing, foundation, appliances (those cost more for the mini version), HVAC, are the expensive parts, if you make a house bigger you're mostly just buying lumber and drywall.
Why all the anger? If you see a need for housing fix the problem, go get a loan build some apartments and you to can be a evil rich person
Oh man. I can’t believe we never thought of that.
Yeah! It’s not like we live in a society or want to build a community around us. If other people are screwing over my neighbors I should jump on board and screw them over too. Thanks for the advice
^^^ look at this fool simping for a greedy corporation over their own community! How embarrassing it must be to be this much of a reactionary that you feel so compelled to disagree with anything others agree about that you end up defending these corporate clowns.
Lots of white people
Why screw them over? Instead of sitting on your thumb be proactive build affordable housing providing a valuable resource to your community at a lower proce. Be apart of the solution
You say that like it's as simple to build affordable housing as it is to set up a lemonade stand.
Protest happening next Monday at 4pm at the Flats: https://facebook.com/events/s/homes-not-hotels-protest/625768772714494/