Cloquet's city council voted unanimously in late July to support the reconstruction of Highway 33, after a public hearing on July 21. The project runs about $11.8 million, covers the stretch from Big Lake Road to the north side of the St. Louis River bridge, and begins in 2028.
Two years out is far enough that most people will forget it and close enough that anyone buying property along that corridor should not.
What is being rebuilt
Highway 33 is not a bypass in Cloquet. It is the town's commercial spine, the route between Interstate 35 and the city, and the road most of Cloquet's retail and service business fronts onto. Rebuilding it means rebuilding the street that the local economy sits on.
The work list is comprehensive: repaving, intersection reconfiguration, pedestrian improvements, new lighting, storm sewer and traffic signals. The signals at Cloquet and Carlton avenues get replaced, with free right turns added at those intersections for certain movements. Selmser Avenue becomes right-in, right-out, a change made for sight-line reasons rather than capacity ones.
The pedestrian package is the part that changes how the corridor feels: sidewalk ramps, marked crosswalks and median refuge islands. A refuge island is a small thing that does a large amount of work. It lets someone crossing a wide highway deal with one direction of traffic at a time, which is the difference between a corridor a person will walk across and one they will drive two blocks to avoid.
There is also a retaining wall along the bluffs, and behind it about ten feet of space that MnDOT is providing for an ATV and snowmobile trail. The state supplies the room; a local club would build the trail itself. In Carlton County that is not a minor amenity. Trail connectivity is a genuine driver of both recreation spending and property desirability here, and a legal, separated route along the highway corridor solves a real problem.
Who pays
Most of it is not Cloquet's money.
The city's share was estimated between roughly $614,000 and $834,000, and was described as eligible for state funding in a way that does not touch the local tax levy. A $200,000 federal grant goes toward the trail. MnDOT carries the balance of the $11.8 million.
That ratio is why the council's vote was unanimous and why the city engineer's advice was essentially to show MnDOT the city's support. When a state agency proposes to rebuild your main street and asks you to cover a small fraction of it, the municipal decision is not a difficult one.
The 2028 problem
Construction runs in two phases with one lane maintained in each direction throughout. Closures and detours are anticipated at Cloquet, Carlton and Selmser avenues and at Avenue F.
Maintaining one lane each way is the good version of this. It is still a construction season, probably two, on the road every business in town depends on. The pattern is well established in this region: a corridor rebuild puts real pressure on the businesses fronting it, some do not survive the disruption, and the district that emerges afterward is better than the one that went in. Superior's Tower Avenue and Duluth's downtown Superior Street have both been through versions of it.
For anyone buying commercial property along Highway 33 in Cloquet between now and 2028, that sequence should be in the underwriting rather than a surprise.
The wider Carlton County picture
This lands in an unusually eventful stretch for the county. The comprehensive plan is being rewritten for the first time since 2001, with adoption targeted for this fall. The county board holds a hearing on August 24 on a one-year data center moratorium. The Carlton and Wrenshall school districts consolidated on July 1. And the Fond du Lac Band is moving toward taking ownership of the 3,400-acre Cloquet Forestry Center while weighing a cultural and tourism complex at the Highway 210 and Interstate 35 junction.
Highway 33 is the physical connection between much of that. It carries traffic from the interstate into Cloquet, past the commercial district, to the river.
For a household considering Cloquet, the practical summary is favorable with a caveat. Cloquet has the county's largest employment base, a full commercial district, hospital and clinic access, and prices below Duluth's, twenty minutes from the Twin Ports. A rebuilt main highway with real pedestrian infrastructure and a trail connection makes it better. The construction years in between are the cost of that, and 2028 is close enough now to plan around.
Reported from Pine Journal coverage, Minnesota Department of Transportation District 1 information, and City of Cloquet council records.