Plans are in place for a new residential community in downtown Duluth, with the Marlowe Duluth complex scheduled to open in 2025. Marlowe Duluth will be a 499-unit rental development with apartments and townhomes. Greystar Development East, LLC is developing the project, working with Meeks Partners as the architects and Kimley-Horn for engineering.
Helping achieve Duluth’s goals
One of the key factors in the Duluth Planning Commission review of Greystar’s plans was that the new community will contribute to the City’s FORWARDuluth Comprehensive Plan. This plan calls for the redevelopment of older and underutilized buildings, and to reduce the amount of real estate that is used for automotive uses in the Downtown Core area. The Commission felt that Marlowe Duluth will address both of these goals, with the additional benefit of accomplishing the City’s aspiration to have 2,000 dwellings within walking distance (a quarter mile) of downtown.
The development will be located in downtown Duluth, in an area bordered by Buford Highway, Fox Street and Hall Circle. The site’s 14 acres are currently made up of 11 separate land parcels, including several businesses, a few private homes, Proctor Square apartments and a vacant lot. These lots had to be rezoned for the Marlowe Duluth development, and the rezoning was approved at the September Duluth City Council meeting.
Most of these properties will be redeveloped as part of the new neighborhood, but two of the commercial real estate properties, the current Atlanta Plus Urgent Care building and the Eurofed Automotive shop, will remain. Greystar expects the Urgent Care facility to continue to occupy their building, but they expect to get new tenants for the Eurofed shop to help achieve the FORWARDuluth goal of reduced auto-related businesses.
The gallery of images comes from the developer’s original application. These are intended to represent the type of development they intend to create.
Apartments and townhomes
The housing in the new development will consist of two apartment buildings and several townhomes.
The primary five-story apartment building will be located on Fox Street, across from the existing District at Duluth apartments. It will have 341 apartments. The second, smaller building will be four stories and located along Buford Highway. This building will have 94 apartments.
Both buildings will have studio, one-, two- and a limited number of three-bedroom units. They will feature brick and glass exteriors with Hardie board accents on the upper floors. The ground floor apartments will be walk-up units with private porches and lockable gates.
The three-story townhomes are on the interior of the property behind the apartment buildings. The townhomes will have two- and three-bedroom options, with exterior designs consistent with the multifamily units. Half of the 64 townhomes will have three-bedrooms.
All the residences will feature wood-style plank flooring with carpeted bedrooms, modern kitchens with granite countertops and stainless appliances, washers and dryers, ceiling fans and walk-in closets. The residents will also have access to a selection of amenities, including a resort-style pool, a gym, flex work and meeting spaces, outdoor grills and a dog park. Estimated rents for the community range from $1650 to $3200 per month.
In total, less than 10% of Marlowe Duluth residences will be three-bedroom units. As such, the City does not expect a large number of children to live in Marlowe Duluth, so they do not anticipate it to put an undue load on Duluth’s school system.
Construction to start in 2023
Residents and guests will be able to drive into Marlowe Duluth from one entrance on Buford Highway and two entrances on Fox Street. Kimley-Horn conducted a traffic analysis for Greystar as part of the rezoning application. This analysis recommended some minor improvements along both roads to help improve traffic flow, including adding and extending turn lanes.
With the zoning approved, the next step is for Greystar to acquire the properties, which are under contract but have not yet closed. Once acquired, the current plans are to start site demolition and grading in May or June of 2023.
Construction should take 26 to 30 months, with the site expected to be complete by December 2025. Units may be available for lease as soon as August of 2025.
