Fire destroyed a vacant building slated for demolition in Duluth's Lincoln Park neighborhood Monday morning.
The Duluth Fire Department was called to the Esmond Building, formerly the Seaway Hotel at 2001 W. Superior St., where a fire had started on the first floor and quickly spread. Crews were pulled from inside the building because of unsafe conditions and heavy fire, and fought the blaze from outside amid a wind chill dropping as low as minus 35.
The Superior Fire Department also was called in for support.
Power was shut off to some nearby homes and businesses for much of the day.
The cause of the fire was still unknown, Duluth Fire Chief Shawn Krizaj said, but there already had been a few fires at the site.
There were no injuries and no one was in the building at the time of the fire, though homeless people sometimes sheltered there.
The Esmond Building was a low-income housing complex, and some of its residents moved to the Garfield Square apartment complex a few blocks east in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in 2020. At one point, there had been push to renovate the building with a rooftop solar array and several units below market rate, but the plans fell through.
