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Changing Views and a Heartfelt Thanks
 If
you are reading this around the end of February, we will planning our
move to new office spaces. We will share more details about our new
home in the next issue.
Our product lines and walk-in customer traffic have continued to grow and this move will do nothing but help that process.
But before I talk about the new space, I want to tell you
something about the old space. You see, that’s because our excitement
is tinged with nostalgia for our former home. The move was necessary
because our amazing lake and harbor views in Waterfront Plaza are,
indeed, amazing. The enormous building has become a prime site for
condominiums.
Our longtime landlord and my good friend, Bill Meierhoff, is
developing the three floors above the Hawthorn Suites into
condominiums. Many have already been sold and, if you’ve been in to
visit us lately, you’ll know we were allowed to stay through our
Christmas rush but were operating in the middle of a construction zone.
Yes, we were very sad to leave the building the magazine has called home for the past 23 years.
This magazine was started, literally, at a kitchen table in
1979. In 1982, the then co-founders - Tom Jesperson and Patricia
Campbell - decided to move it from the kitchen into real office space.
They leased space next to my Columbia Steel Castings office
on the fifth floor of the then Meierhoff Building. It was through that
adjacency that I began to write for, invest in and eventually become
full owner of the Lake Superior Port Cities Magazine in 1983-1984.
It was a very lucky day for this magazine when it became a tenant of the Meierhoff family.
The support they have provided these many years has literally been a major reason this magazine could survive and flourish.
Bill’s dad, Marvin, and later Bill himself both took a personal interest in the magazine’s success.
Many pieces of furniture still in use (can you even begin to
wear out anything with the name Steelcase?) came from the original
Marine Iron and Shipbuilding Company or Modern Distributors, which was
owned by the Meierhoffs.
If we had a need, we would “shop” here, first.
For many years, their home has been our home. Toni and Bill
Meierhoff own and live in the building which was once home to Lake
Superior Magazine. Now we are headed toward new digs. Photo by Bruce
Ojar
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Over the years, we’ve been in four different office spaces in
the building, moving first to accommodate our growth and then to
accommodate the changes taking place within the building.
I was able to take advantage of another perk of being in the
building. Bill and I could frequently go to lunch together and I
thoroughly enjoyed the company of such a close friend over the years.
Today in our longtime home, there is not only the Hawthorn
Suites, where the pool is nestled into the area that was once a loading
dock, but also the Timber Lodge Steakhouse, Red Lobster and Old Chicago
restaurants in places where we used to walk and work.
The Meierhoffs built the first condominium within the
building about 10 years ago - well ahead of the current demand for
low-maintenance spaces throughout Duluth. We’ve coexisted well but now
our business, with all the merchandise coming in and out, is no longer
a good fit with the soon-to-be residences.
My business partners, Cindy and Paul Hayden, join me in
publicly thanking Bill Meierhoff for all he and his staff have done to
help us over the years and also for allowing us the time necessary to
find a new home.
We also thank Bill’s wife, Toni, for lending us her oven
upstairs to make pasties for the staff one afternoon and to Sadie
Meierhoff for letting us fluff her ears in the elevator. (Sadie is the
Meierhoffs’ standard poodle.)
We would highly recommend to anyone in the market for a
condominium to be certain to check out the beautiful spaces and views
of Lake Superior and Duluth from this building in Canal Park that have
inspired us for so long.
Meanwhile, if you find yourself in Duluth around the end of
March or later, call us first (218-722-5002 or 888-244-5253) and then
stop by and see where we are newly planted and hoping to grow.
The second edition of Shipwrecks of Lake Superior,
edited by Jim Marshall, has recently been published. And a selection of
Jim Marshall’s columns of lake lore and his inland sea voyages
has been published as Lake Superior Journal: Views from the Bridge
by Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. Follow this link
for more information.
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