HERMANTOWN — The former home of Arrowhead Refinery on the corner of U.S. Highway 53 and Ugstad Road could someday become a new business park, based on an environmental assessment conducted by the city of Hermantown through the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board. The site, along with nearby plots of land, underwent an Alternative Urban Areawide Review process that examines the environmental impact of various possible developments on the site.

“Normally, if the landowner had a project lined up, they would have to go through and do an environmental assessment worksheet,” said City Administrator John Mulder. “So what we’re doing is getting ahead of the game, so if a project comes along, they will already be that much further ahead in terms of the environmental review process.”

Essentially the review is a “planning tool to understand how different development scenarios will affect the environment of their community before the development occurs,” according to the state board’s website. It identifies areas of concern such as the traffic levels that developments would generate, as well as how waterways and wetlands would be impacted and it provides plans to avoid future contamination.

“They look at the worst-case scenario,” said Community Development Director Eric Johnson. “Whether that’s a series of 3-acre lots with 30,000- to 50,000-square-foot buildings on it or, as some would see, the worse case might very well be that nothing happens for quite a while. In that case, we’ve done a lot of work to make this site ready and we just have to wait.”

Mulder said part of the reason for engaging with this type of planning process is also due to the site’s history. The site was removed from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund site list two years ago. A Superfund site is a polluted location which requires a hazardous material cleanup. As a refinery, the site processed recycled oil and required the landowners to do a lot of remediation work to clean it up.

“As it was delisted, we started talking to the landowner to say, ‘Hey, you’ve been holding that a long time. You want to see some kind of return on investment? How can we maximize the return on investment? How can we maximize the development there?'” Mulder said. “So we started talking to that landowner about what we might be able to do to help him develop that land at some point in time.”

Three development scenarios were evaluated and further refined resulting in a final development scenario. The final plan doesn’t include an exact configuration of each building until construction on each parcel is designed and a project is in development. There are no current project plans for the land in place, but Johnson said the study raised interest in the site.

“Based on the number of phone calls I’ve had in the last week, I’d say people are interested,” Johnson said. “I’ve had two or three contracting companies coming out to say they’re willing to make this site a reality. And I’ve told them, they’ve got to talk to the landowners. They have to decide what they want to see happen here. We’re just the planning process, they have the final say on what happens to their land.”

The review of the site has been published by the board and is now available on the city of Hermantown’s website at

hermantownmn.com/bizpark

. A 30-day review period is set to end June 15, after which the city staff has 15 days to respond to any comments or questions raised during the review period. It will go then back to the City Council for approval.

“This is an opportunity for people to see what could happen on this site and provide a comment,” Johnson said. “And it’s good for people to know that the city is being proactive in terms of dealing with a site that has had some environmental problems in the past and how we can clear that up.”

Teri Cadeau is a general assignment and neighborhood reporter for the Duluth News Tribune. Originally from the Iron Range, Cadeau has worked for several community newspapers in the Duluth area for eight years including: The Duluth Budgeteer News, Western Weekly, Weekly Observer, Lake County News-Chronicle and occasionally, the Cloquet Pine Journal. When not working, she’s an avid reader and crafter.