DULUTH — Agents acting on behalf of the Cargill family continue to acquire property on Park Point at a pace that has drawn the attention of neighbors and folks at City Hall as well.
Mayor Roger Reinert wrote a letter to billionaire Kathy Cargill on Feb. 8 asking to discuss her plans for several properties she and her representatives had recently purchased on Park Point, which has led to the removal and emptying of multiple homes in the neighborhood.
But it elicited no response. And the buying spree has continued, with upward of 20 properties now sold to the Cargills.
So now, Reinert hopes to enlist the support of city councilors to amplify his request for better lines of communication.
“Especially given this latest tranche of purchases, I’m going to invite Councilor Roz Randorf, as the district council representative, and the four other at-large councilors to join me on a follow-up letter that will hopefully maybe get a response, because apparently a letter from the mayor alone doesn’t warrant any attention," he said.
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Randorf said she’s fully on board.
“The number of properties being acquired is extremely alarming,” she said, noting that many have been purchased at above-market prices.
Randorf said the city has been working hard to increase its housing inventory, and the prospect of moving backward seems disheartening.
Reinert acknowledged the Cargills have no obligation to share their plans with city officials and are fully within their rights to buy and sell property at will for whatever price they see fit.
But he said one thing remains non-negotiable: Park Point will not become a gated community.
“The beaches, the roads and the water accesses are going to remain public, no matter who is buying what. We will vigorously protect the rights to public access to both the bay and the lakeside,” Reinert said.
Dawn Buck, president of the Park Point Community Club, said folks can’t be faulted for selling their properties for top dollar. But the neighborhood remains uncertain what the future holds.
“We’re wondering and worrying. We’d like to know what they have planned,” she said.
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“I’m trying to remain hopeful,” Buck said. “I’m really hoping she responds because I think people would feel better to know what might be coming. And we all like to have good neighbors.”
Buck said some Park Point homes recently have sold for nearly double their assessed value, and there are concerns about the potential tax implications for other property owners going forward.
County Board Commissioner Annie Harala said she worries about increasing property values. "I’ve been hearing constituents’ concerns about that," she said.
“We are tracking this closely, but how sale prices are set is ruled by state tax code,” she said, pointing out the county has limited latitude. “Because after a while, one-offs become a trend.”
Park Point has humble origins, as Buck noted. She said the area was redlined , making it difficult to finance a home in the area until the mid-1900s. Buck said her own family took up residence there in the early 1900s before it was considered a desirable place to live.
“It was not the Ritz,” she said. “People collected driftwood to burn. They collected coal off the beach. They were poor folks, working folks. It was not a high-end community. Things were pretty tough.
“Now it’s an exclusive place to live, where taxes are pretty high. But it’s an extraordinary place to live. And the word is out,” Buck said.
Reinert said Park Point is precious not only to Duluthians but to people from near and far.
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“In Park Point, we have the world’s largest freshwater sandbar, and the unique formation of Minnesota Point and Wisconsin Point is just that: unique to the entire world. So, both the Native history and the European settler history on Park Point is pretty amazing,” he said.
Reinert enjoys sailing and briefly made his home on Park Point. He admits to having a special personal affinity for the neighborhood, but he said the prospective loss of housing units there remains a larger community concern.
“When we only gained 39 net new single-family homes over a decade, to have nine torn down and a bunch of others sitting empty is a real issue. It’s a real hit to our housing stock, when we’re working really hard to improve that,” Reinert said, noting the difficulties major employers, including health care providers and aeronautics companies, have had recruiting talent to the community.
Reinert said he and city staff intend to maintain an open-door invitation to the Cargills to discuss their plans for the property they have acquired in Duluth thus far.
But until the family’s intentions are clear, he suggested another alternative to residents.
“The easiest resolution to this is: Don’t sell,” he said. “I know it’s tempting, given the prices that are floating around out there. But step No. 1 is: Don’t sell. Then, step No. 2 is to get Ms. Cargill, or her representatives, to share what her plans and intentions are, because in the absence of that, people make up their own stories.”
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