The Duluth Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) held a ribbon cutting for it’s newest housing project on February 5.

Skyridge Flats is apartment building for those 55 and older, featuring 70 one-bedroom units around 600 to 800 square-feet. Built as an affordable housing, rent for the units is capped at $800 per month, utilities included. Seven of the units have been set aside for veterans transitioning out of homelessness.

Construction costs for Skyridge totaled just above $19 million. Funding primarily came from housing bonds from the state, Duluth’s HRA, as well as from the city and county.

As Duluth, and the Northland grapple with the housing crisis, Mayor Roger Reinert thinks senior apartments like these could help with the shortage of single-family homes in the city.

“As folks move into those units, they might be freeing up other housing within the community. 55 and older couple finding a home here that then opens up a home somewhere else that right now families are desperately looking for because this isn’t the Duluth of a decade or 20 years ago, the jobs are there, the houses are not.” The mayor said, during brief remarks at the opening.

 At the time of the ribbon cutting, HRA officials said approximately 12 people had moved into the building.