Demolition Has Begun On Duluth’s Central High School

Back in 2011, the city of Duluth decided to consolidate the three public High Schools down to 2 one on the West side of town and one on the East side of town it was called The Red Plan. On top of that, they also decided to move Ordean Middle School to the East High School building and East High School to the newly expanded Ordean Middle School building.

I had kids in school at the time who would be going to school at East High School and at the new location we were too close to the school for them to take the bus but still too far for them to walk. This was a major headache as my kids had to take the city bus or if the weather was nice enough ride their bikes to school. Of course, we were not the only ones in that situation but to this day I do not understand why they switched buildings. Parking was and is a total nightmare around the school on top of all that money to make additions and adjustments to the school.

Then let's talk about over-stuffed classrooms. Taking a group of kids from an entire high school and filtering them off into two schools was a lot, I heard initially some kids at Denfeld did not even have a desk to sit in. But I also understand the cost of having another school with declining enrollment was not working either, so something had to be done.

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Fast forward now to 11 years later as the building has sat empty this entire time, in August of this year, the 55-acre property was finally sold to Chester Creek View, LLC, a New York developer, for $8 million. Take a tour inside the empty building here.

John Magas, the Superintendent of Duluth Public Schools, said to Northernnewsnow: “It’s, it was important for us to think about how can we get the most resources out of this property for our students." But for some alumni of the school, it is a sad day to see the walls come crumbling down.

One of those alumni is former Mayor of Duluth Don Ness who sat down with Northernnewsnow saying:

"It’s heartbreaking to see that building come down. We’re working on the creation of an alumni association, to make sure that even though the building doesn’t exist, the memories and legacy of Duluth Central continue on."