The community of Two Harbors is fortunate to have a cadre of local residents who are putting time and energy into developing the Agate Bay waterfront. The Lake County Veterans Memorial Committee, Friends Of The Waterfront, the Citizens Institute For Rural Design and folks from the Lake County Soil And Water District, have all been working to revive Agate Bay for the benefit of residents and tourists alike.
At Monday night’s council meeting, members heard a presentation by Garrett Farmer of NAI Legacy, a commercial real estate service based out of the Minneapolis area. Farmer was accompanied by Trace Jacques, Senior Design Architect for the firm. Farmer and Jacques shared design renderings for a possible boutique hotel that could be added to the waterfront as a complement to the plans that other groups are developing. While adding a boutique hotel to the waterfront development is simply an idea at present, the Council did vote to authorize the City Attorney to negotiate terms for a purchase and development agreement with NAI Legacy. Architectural drawings of what the hotel could look like will be available on the city’s website and if and when the project moves forward, there will be public meetings so that residents can give input and ask questions.
Some of the features presented to council members include flexible design for the number of hotel rooms the building would contain, an event center, restaurant, a two story glass atrium, terraced space facing the bay and other amenities. The exterior of the hotel would compliment the natural landscape of the bay and the industrial nature of the ore docks. Farmer and Jacques said the hotel could bring more that 100 jobs to the area during tourist season and 75 to 85 jobs during the low season. They estimate that the hotel could bring around $10 million in revenue to the city annually. If you are interested, check out the information that will be on the city’s website soon and stay tuned for further developments.
In other Council business, the old arrival / departure building at the airport has been demolished and construction of the new building is underway. City administration met with the owners of the John Johnson property to talk about ideas for housing at that location. The Planning Commission will be a part of the discussions that are to come on that and we will report on the progress for this project as information becomes available.
Finally, several names for the new liquor store have been submitted and the Council will be making the decision on that at their next meeting, which will be held on September 23rd at 5:30 PM.
