DULUTH — Duluth is spending $37,500 to study its downtown housing market as the city's core shifts from an employment hub to a more residential sector.

New Jersey-based consultant Zimmerman/Volk Associates was hired in March to consider the capacity and demand for downtown housing and how to best execute a development plan, according to Adam Fulton, deputy director of planning and economic development for the city. The study emerges from the Downtown Task Force's 27-point plan for the pandemic-changed heart of the city.

"We need to understand the dynamics of our housing market and the things that influence our housing market, such as vacancy of other structures, the opportunities within those vacant structures that can be converted to housing," Fulton said during the task force's quarterly check-in Monday morning in the Zeitgeist Atrium.

A study of this kind hasn't been conducted since a 2019 report by Maxfield Research & Consulting and results are expected in a few months.

The Downtown Task Force, led by Kristi Stokes of Downtown Duluth (formerly the Greater Downtown Council) and Shaun Floerke of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, was introduced during Duluth Mayor Emily Larson's 2022 State of the City address, as a way to focus on safety and investment in this area of the city, which has changed significantly in the past three years.

According to Stokes, 50% to 60% of employees who worked downtown before the pandemic have returned to their offices — while square footage devoted to housing has increased 13%. Within their own office building, Stokes said, there are at least 40 residential units above their office space.

The Downtown Task Force's 27-point plan was introduced in July 2022 and included actions ranging from creating attractive storefronts on downtown businesses, to lighting dark alleys. The addition of a city prosecutor and an embedded outreach workers within Downtown Duluth's Clean and Safe Team are among those that have been completed.

Stokes said that Downtown Duluth's goal is to have a neighborhood that is vibrant for 18 hours a day. To this end, the group has been working with an urban consultant to talk about improving property values, recruiting tenants and creating incentive programs for local businesses.

Downtowns across the country have changed because of the pandemic, Stokes said. While some people might have nostalgia for the old ways of doing things, the future will bring something different.

"Now we can create new things," she said. "And I think that's where we all need to start to embrace that change."