Business View Magazine - October 2016 111
and, another, downtown redevelopment. “We’ve been
working, for about the last nine years, in planning for
what’s called The Northern Lights Express,” he begins.
“It would come from Minneapolis/St. Paul and termi-
nate in Duluth. But it would then connect to a passen-
ger rail service that would go all the way to Kansas
City and Chicago and then connect to the national net-
work. It’s gone through all of the planning phases, and
all of the environmental assessment phases required
by the Federal Railroad Administration. We have our
application in and are waiting for the next allocation
of funds and the match, which would be through cap-
ital bonding by the state, to implement and start to
build the passenger rail line, refurbishing tracks from
St. Paul to Duluth, and then putting in the facilities in
each of those locations. We’re projecting the first run
by 2020.”
Hamre continues: “A project in the middle of our town,
which we’ve been planning for the last couple of years,
is the total reconstruction of our main street – Superior
St. It’s to replace our sewer line and replace our water
line which are about one hundred years old, and to re-
do our downtown’s main street, which was last done in
the early ‘80s. We put down brick pavers at that time,
and so, we’re looking at re-creating our streetscape.”
Hamre says that the project will also include an im-
portant energy improvement, or “green” aspect. “We
have a ‘steam’ district in our downtown,” he explains.
“We take Lake Superior water, which is about 38-39
degrees; we heat it up and put it through the pipes and
heat downtown properties. And we’re going to convert
that to a hot-water, closed-loop system, which will be
much more energy efficient. It will probably increase
our efficiency two- to three-fold.”
How much will the project cost and where will the
money coming from? “We’re looking at a $20 million
investment in that steam district, and the street, itself,
is going to run about $23 million,” Hamre says. “We
