Duluth’s St. Mary’s Medical Center will be demolished when Essentia Health’s new hospital tower opens in 2023, reports the Star Tribune.
The health care organization made the decision with the Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica Monastery, who first cared for patients on the downtown site in 1898, 10 years after St. Mary’s Hospital began operating in Duluth’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
The new 12-story hospital tower — with 942,000 square feet of new construction extending skyward — is part of Essentia’s $900 million project, which includes renovation of existing clinic space, private patient rooms and space for changing health care technology.
The current hospital’s high operating and maintenance costs, including those for heating, cooling, electrical and plumbing systems, played into the decision and rendered renovating or repurposing the building impractical. Read more.
