DEDA Cancels Predevelopment Agreement After True North Goodwill Withdraws $20M Plan

True North Goodwill Northern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin formally withdrew from plans to build a $20 million Resource and Training Center at the Atlas Industrial Park in western Duluth, prompting the Duluth Economic Development Authority to cancel the predevelopment agreement at its Feb. 25 meeting. The decision removes a proposed headquarters and training hub that planners said would have occupied roughly 60,000 to 61,000 square feet on land that once housed the Atlas Cement Plant.

The predevelopment agreement was signed Sept. 17, 2024 and described development of a 61,000-square-foot facility, while internal planning materials and public statements earlier described the project at about 60,000 square feet. DEDA’s resolution that canceled the agreement states that “any grants DEDA received for the project from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development will also be terminated,” and DEDA has posted the resolution as the formal action ending the partnership on the Atlas site.

True North Goodwill director of community engagement Scott Vezina wrote in an email after a Feb. 26 tour of the organization’s headquarters at 700 Garfield Ave that the nonprofit is pulling back “due to site size and environmental constraints - and not aligning on tax‑exempt status with the Duluth Economic Development Authority - we are now exploring alternative locations.” DEDA Executive Director Tricia Hobbs said the organization decided not to proceed in part because it would have been required to pay property taxes on the site and did not wish to relinquish its tax‑exempt status, highlighting a policy tension between DEDA’s mission to expand the local tax base and a nonprofit seeking tax relief.

Planners had envisioned the new campus as a community hub offering classrooms, skills training including CDL and CNA programs, a career navigation center, childcare, an outlet store and warehouse space, and close coordination with nearby nonprofits and transit. Vezina had described the anticipated service scale in public remarks, saying the facility would allow Goodwill to “take our service numbers from the hundreds into the thousands. We’re going to be able to offer programming we haven’t been able to offer before.” Project proponents also presented an employment case that included 75 new jobs, which Goodwill said would bring total headquarters employment to about 135 people.

Funding plans for the Atlas proposal called for Goodwill to raise $5 million through a capital campaign, sell its current Garfield Avenue property for an additional $5 million to $7 million, and cover the remainder through organizational investment and financing. The site had been the target of a DEED redevelopment award for work on the former cement plant parcel; project materials had listed a $250,000 DEED grant for land redevelopment, which the DEDA resolution now indicates will be terminated along with any other DEED funds tied to the predevelopment agreement.

True North Goodwill’s headquarters at 700 Garfield Ave, in operation since 1980, remain active while the organization searches for alternative locations for an expanded resource and training campus. With the DEDA action final, the Atlas Industrial Park site returns to a developer and public-agency planning state that will have to resolve environmental constraints tied to its cement plant history and determine new uses that align with DEDA’s tax‑base objectives.

The cancellation delays or halts timelines that planners had discussed when the Atlas plan appeared to be moving forward; earlier projections had suggested breaking ground later in the year and opening by 2026. For now, the formal end of the predevelopment agreement on Feb. 25 leaves local workforce training leaders and neighborhood stakeholders to await Goodwill’s next steps and any new development proposals for the former Atlas Cement Plant parcel.