Duluth’s Clyde Park, New Brewery, Under Construction Hotel Changes Leadership – Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH — Alex Giuliani purchased the sprawling 10.2-acre Clyde Iron Works complex in Duluth’s West End in 2003 to breathe new life into a degraded industrial site and develop restaurants, event venues, communities and more. transformed into a center of activity. Owned hockey arena complex.

But after 20 years of sweat and toil, he’s ready to let go, but double down on his efforts to grow his enterprise by opening a new local microbrewery pub and hotel.

At the start of the new year, he will hand control of the operation over to his 30-year-old daughter, Toni Giuliani Hughes.

It’s time, he said.

Giuliani, 60, remembers how his mother, Maria, immigrated to successfully launch the Northland eyewear chain. She also lent a big hand in helping him get Clyde back.

“She was the nicest business woman you’ve ever met. Toni has a lot of my mother,” he said.

Toni recalls being a tween, maybe 11 or 12, when she first toured the property and said, “I thought it was the craziest idea ever.”

“But when we started construction, I remember walking in the kitchen when it was installed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father so happy and proud that day,” she said. Told.

When Clyde opened his business as a teenager, Toni worked as a cashier and dishwasher. “I did it all,” she said. These days, Toni spends most of her time booking and taking care of her events at Clyde.

“I have complete faith in her and admire what she does,” Giuliani said of her daughter.

Despite his newfound freedom after handing over the reins, Giuliani has no plans to slow down.

Giuliani plans to open his own on-site brewery in mid-January, working with co-founder and former head brewer Dale Kleinschmidt of recently changed ownership Lake Superior Brewing Co. .

Mr. Kleinschmidt has been preparing new equipment and fine-tuning the recipe for full-scale production. He said that not a day goes by without someone asking when he can drink his creations.

As producers of heavy equipment, not liquor, Clyde aims to offer six breweries that pay homage to the complex’s history. Its Clyde line-up includes Steam Skidder Stout, Stiff Leg IPA, McGifert Logger Lager, Non-Alcoholic Operator’s Root Beer, Willie Wheat Beer, Clyde Cream Ale and Empire Korche Ale, recognizing the important role Clyde built. increase. Cranes helped build the Empire State Building.

Noting that he’s been toying with the idea of ​​opening a brewery since the early 1990s, Giuliani boasts, “We have one of the most accomplished breweries in the state.” When a change of ownership put Kleinschmidt temporarily out of work, Giuliani quickly swooped in and recruited his talents.

“It took a few years, but it looks like we are finally there,” he said.

Clyde will operate as a brewpub that will not only sell its own products on the premises, but will also offer growlers for patrons to take home.

Ghirliani hopes the brewery will help cement Clyde as an attraction. He also noted that the Essentia Duluth Heritage Center Arena complex, developed on Clyde’s grounds, is now connected to the brewery and restaurant by walkways, so patrons traveling from one place to another have to go outside. said to be gone.

Next, he plans to build a 34-room hotel this summer. Giuliani said they aim to use some new building techniques and techniques to speed up the completion of the structure, with an eye on energy efficiency and minimizing carbon footprint. The project is expected to cost him over $10 million.

The hotel is across from the arena, and Giuliani said a second hotel will follow soon after if it’s as successful as he believes.

“Once the brewery is up and running and the hotel is complete, I think we can see the complete vision come together,” Toni said.

Giuliani is used to working on difficult projects and recalls Clyde’s condition when he first acquired the property.

“It was a massive undertaking with environmental and structural challenges. It required the efforts of various entities just to bring something together,” he said.

Giuliani has approached the property with a degree of respect for its history. Some structures were too far away to be preserved, but materials salvaged from those structures were used for redevelopment.

He said 300,000 old bricks entered the reconstructed Clyde Park site.

“My two children and I palletized a lot of bricks and moved a lot of heavy lumber. But these materials are no longer available. Considering the many aged Douglas firs we have preserved,” says Giuliani.

Reusing old materials was not only responsible, but it also brought other benefits.

“It gave us an identity. rice field.

The ambitious redevelopment has been recognized with numerous awards over the years.