2 October 2024
DULUTH — Mayor Roger Reinert is still looking to a citizens’ advisory panel for guidance regarding the future of the Lester Park Golf Course property, four years after it ceased operations.
This week, Reinert announced plans to reboot a working group tasked with providing recommendations for what should become of the former golf course.
Reinert had established a working group for the same purpose seven months earlier before pausing for a reboot this week.
He said the group “struggled for a variety of reasons and then sort fell apart over the summer.”
In taking another look at the issue, Reinert said he sought to bring more people to the table with interests in addition to golf.
“How do you incorporate hiking trails, biking trails, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, birding and disc golf? Those are all things that could happen there. And what is a model that doesn’t involve the city running it?” Reinert asked.
He noted that the city closed the golf course after sustaining repeated financial losses there and choosing instead to focus on improving Duluth’s only other municipal golf course at Enger Park to make it self-sustaining.
Reinert suggested the window to reopen Lester under a different operating structure is likely limited.
“If there isn’t a viable alternative future at Lester, we’re heading into yet another year of that place being dormant, and at some point, if there’s not a different future there, we need to acknowledge that,” he said.
Reinert plans to attend a meeting of the new working group at 6 p.m. Monday at the Lakeside-Lester Park Community Center. “I’ll be very direct with the group: You have a big hill to climb,” he said.
He noted that the golf course has been left to deteriorate for several years now. Nevertheless, Tim Meyer, who will co-chair the Lester Park working group alongside Konner Cooke, said he remains optimistic that golf will return to the property, whether as an 18- or nine-hole course.
He noted that much of the study has gone into assessing the opportunities at Lester.
But Meyer said the original group may have been too golf-focused for the mayor’s taste. “I think the mayor felt the initial steering committee that we had put together did not include the right kind of representation that he wanted to see in terms of the number of recreation groups represented,” he said. “So, we did a little retooling.’
The reconfigured group now has 24 members.
Reinert contends a broader vision was needed, as golf is only possible for a portion of the year.
As CEO and president of Meyer Group Architecture, Meyer acknowledged the pace of the study has been a departure from what he has experienced and would have expected in the private sector.
“But this is a public process. And the mayor probably put it best when he said: ‘Things are kind of moving at the speed of government,’” Meyer said. “It’s a political process, and we need to make sure the right people are at the table in terms of steering this.”
Reinert noted that other city-owned properties, such as Chester Bowl, Hartley Nature Center and Lake Superior Zoo, have enjoyed success with the help of community-led support.
“So, it’s not impossible. But it is a big hill to climb, for sure,” he said.
As the working group looks at recreational opportunities for the former golf course, the Duluth Economic Development Authority continues to explore the opportunities to bring more housing and development to the area. It has partnered with Oppidan Investment Co., an entity interested in developing about a 37-acre parcel of the land, including the Lake Nine portion of the golf course.
Reinert said the recent easing of interest rates may bode well for additional development, and that’s potentially good news for a city in desperate need of housing.
“I am supportive of tax base development, and we’re looking for housing across all income levels,” he said.
Reinert requests that the working group submit its recommendations to city administration by April 1.
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