DULUTH — Having torn down all but two of the 14 homes she purchased on Park Point, leaving behind fenced-off empty lots and creating a public outcry last year, a billionaire owner is now selling several of her properties.
Kathy Cargill amassed the properties, totaling some 24 parcels, from 2021 to 2024, under North Shore LS LLC, but kept her plans for the lots under wraps, threatening to sue the News Tribune when asked about it and telling the Wall Street Journal later that she wouldn’t hold to her original plans of beautifying Park Point and perhaps bringing pickleball courts and a coffee shop to the neighborhood after Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert expressed concern over the loss of residential properties in the city.
It appears that at least some of her properties are destined for new owners.
A sale is pending at two locations, 1301 S. Lake Ave. and 2217 Minnesota Ave., and two remain on the market: 1521 Minnesota Ave. and 1439 Minnesota Ave. The Minnesota Star Tribune first reported the properties listed for sale.
All three are listed by Sotheby’s International Realty.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Marc Owens-Kurtz, the properties’ listing agent, hung up when a News Tribune reporter introduced himself.
Cargill did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment Wednesday.
On the Lake Superior side near the S-curve and 12th Street Beach, the sale of 1301 S. Lake Ave. includes two additional, adjacent parcels: 1302 Minnesota Ave. and 1314 Minnesota Ave. Each empty parcel once contained a home, but those were torn down after Cargill purchased them.
The combined three-parcel property is listed for $850,000. Cargill purchased the homes for a combined $1.73 million in late 2022 and early 2023.
The other under contract is 2217 Minnesota Ave., one of two homes Cargill purchased but did not raze on Park Point. The 2,742-square-foot, four-bedroom, two-bath home contains two parcels on the harbor side and is listed for $799,900. Cargill purchased it in March 2024 for $655,000.
Another four parcels are listed for sale at 1521 Minnesota Ave. The empty property once contained a home, which Cargill removed. It is listed for $575,000. Cargill purchased it for $465,000 in February 2024.
Two parcels at 1439 Minnesota Ave. are for sale for $499,900. Its home was also torn down after Cargill purchased it in January 2024 for $465,000.
As of Wednesday evening, Cargill’s other Park Point properties — a $2.5 million mansion and 12 other empty parcels — had not been listed for sale.
RELATED: Joe Soucheray: Kathy Cargill had me at ‘McLaren’ …
Cargill spurred outrage and national interest in late 2024 and early 2025, beginning with the News Tribune’s first report on her purchases, in which she described the houses she tore down as “pieces of crap.”
Then, when the Wall Street Journal spoke with her, she doubled down and called Duluth a “small-minded community” and that Reinert “peed in his Cheerios” by requesting to discuss plans for several properties.
Duluthians responded with a food drive for Cheerios donations.
Since then, Cargill’s activity on Park Point has slowed, and purchases by North Shore LS have stopped.
She married James R. Cargill II, who Forbes identifies as one of 12 billionaire heirs to Cargill, an agribusiness juggernaut that’s the nation’s largest privately held company. The magazine estimated James Cargill’s net worth at $4.5 billion, placing him in 288th place on its list of the nation’s wealthiest people.
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