The Teardown

Allo! It's high time we came out with it: We're the new tenants at 525 Lake Avenue South, Duluth, MN, 55802! Take Lake Avenue to the lift bridge - we're the last building on the right.

Many moons ago when we first looked at the space, it looked like this: It hadn't seen use for decades, was split up with a bunch of walls, and was crammed full of junk*. Including - for example: duck a la planche;

(*one man's junk is another man's treasure)

bears;

(Scary!)

and asbestos-covered pipes.

Round about 100 years ago it was a horse stable, and later it housed the canning line in a big factory operation. One section was used as a linen store where they handed out uniforms to the workers. Most recently, the chunk that will be our retail area was used as a private garage by the illustrious Jeno Paulucci. With the help of a stair chair, he could go right from his car to his office without once leaving red carpet.

Long story short - we dreamed up one big connected space, we made a deal, and we got to work! (Okay, actually the guys who run the building got to work - that was part of the deal :) ) Here it is mostly opened up:

And now, after sandblasting, it looks like this:

Next step: doors and windows. Then it's on to mechanical work. Here's a full gallery of the excitement.[gallery ids="305,304,303,302,301,300,299,298,297,306,296,313,307,308,315,309,310,311,312,314,294,295,293,292,291,290,289,288,287,286,285,284,283,282"]

Stay tuned!