DULUTH, Minn. — After six years of work and a $6.4 million investment, Duluth’s popular Brighton Beach is back.

On Monday afternoon, Duluth officially reopened the reconfigured Lake Superior Park with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The project extended the Lakewalk to the shoreline, separating it from Brighton Beach Drive, into which the path previously spilled.

Today, the road has moved inland and the Lakewalk has its own space, devoid of motorized traffic.

Before the project, Brighton Beach Drive was repeatedly hit by storms and rebuilt several times, as recalled by Jim Filby Williams, the city’s director of parks, libraries and properties.

“Our park and street maintenance staff probably identified no more with Sisyphus than they did with this park,” Filby Williams said, referring to the recurring damage the park has suffered in recent years and the repeated repairs that followed. In Greek myth, Sisyphus pushes a boulder up a hill, only to see it fall back down each time he approaches the top. This happens to Sisyphus repeatedly throughout eternity.

Filby Williams recalled the scene six years ago.

“For the third time in three years, a large portion of Brighton Beach Road has once again been destroyed after another catastrophic storm on Lake Superior. Park and street maintenance staff prepared once again to clean up debris and repair damage, with the discouraging certainty that they would return to do the same costly and labor-intensive cleanup and rebuilding. “work, again and again, in the years to come,” he declared. said.

The redesigned park, which serves as a gateway to the North Shore, offers a much brighter future, according to Filby Williams.

“I am confident that this reconfigured park will be resilient and sustainable, even in the face of the more intense and more frequent storms we are experiencing with climate change,” he said.

Filby Williams said the redone park provides a safer environment for walkers, cyclists and motorists. It also provides better access to the lake for the general public.

Filby Willliams said the city is not only constrained by its legal obligation to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act standards.

“But it is a value of the city of Duluth to serve all of our citizens. So we’re very excited about improving accessibility, knowing that it helps people with disabilities enjoy the park. But it also makes the park much easier to access and use for the many people who may not have a disability per se, but who are aging and experiencing physical limitations of various kinds,” he said. -he declared.

Filby Williams predicts the community will be happy with the results.

“The opportunity was not only to move infrastructure out of harm’s way, but also to take advantage of the opportunity to naturalize the shoreline,” he said, noting that the city has reopened tributary waterways which were previously conveyed via culverts.

Mayor Roger Reinert acknowledged the extensive planning staff put into the Brighton Beach project and thanked his predecessor, Emily Larson, for putting it in motion.

Filby Williams said the city’s work to stabilize its shoreline and recreational facilities is far from over, however. Next year, staff hopes to rebuild downtown Duluth’s Lakewalk, from the corner of the lake to East 26th Avenue, at a cost of about $10 million.

Even after Duluth finishes work on its waterfront, Filby Williams said the city will likely face “a much larger effort” to upgrade parks and upland properties to better survive more flash flooding. frequent.

Park planner Cliff Knettel said the city has received numerous inquiries about why the Brighton Beach project is taking so long.

“The reality is that these were four separate projects. First there was the extension of the trail. Second, there were the shoreline improvements. Third, there were the park improvements. And then fourth, there was the road. They all involved different funding sources – state, federal and local – and they don’t always align 100%. But the fact that we could align them over a four-year period was huge, because otherwise it could take a decade or more,” Knettel said.

For its part, the city footed about $4.1 million of the bill.