Gary-New Duluth

By Brady Slater bslater@duluthnews.com

Fran Morris emerged from her home in the heart of Gary-New Duluth on 101st Avenue West to visit a new neighbor as he painted the door of a church he’s remodeling into his residence.

“Duluth is where all the space is,” said the man, an artist from Minneapolis wary of broadcasting his name.

With a quick “How are you?” Morris invited the man to a concert in the park later in the evening on what was a July day.

“This is a community,” Morris said, describing how the Gary-New Duluth neighborhood that grew up around the old U.S. Steel mill is now centered on its Stowe Elementary School and a burgeoning new community center and recreation area.

“I’ve lived here my whole life,” Morris said. “There’s a lot of older people selling their homes, and young families moving in. It’s a neighborhood in transition and it’s the place to be if you have a young family.”

Morris is a member of the Gary-New Duluth Development Alliance which has been responsible for the growth of the recreation area since 2016.

Located on 101st Avenue West next to Stowe Elementary, there is a new community center building surrounded by soccer fields, an outdoor performance pavilion, a community garden, sports court, and a dog park dedicated to K-9 Haas who was killed on duty earlier this year and whose Duluth Police Department handler, Aaron Haller, grew up in the neighborhood.

On tap are a second pavilion, a disc golf course, and an urban skate park currently under construction.

Leveraging $500,000 from the city’s half-and-half tax dedicated to neighborhoods along the St. Louis River corridor, the Gary-New Duluth Alliance has also used volunteer labor, fundraising and grantwriting to build up the nearly $3 million recreation area.

“It had been nothing,” Morris said, describing the efforts to build the now-sprawling community rec area.

The area that is now soccer fields used to lack drainage and be more suited to kayaking following a rain, she said. But that’s all changed. The YMCA provides after-school and year-round programming at the community center. Saturdays from 9-11:30 a.m. on the sports court are reserved for pickleball.

On Sept. 7, there will be a neighborhood festival and concert titled, “From the Alps to the Adriatic,” celebrating the neighborhood’s ethnic roots.

“It’s really rich in Eastern European history,” Morris said. “Hence our festival. It will feature Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian music and foods.”

Proud of her neighborhood and its new centerpiece, Morris produced a brochure featuring the names of scores of residents and businesses who have contributed to make it happen.

“We developed the area to give the community someplace to go,” she said. “This is the center of the community.”