building our city By Andy Greder Slip Side Lodging A The Pier B Resort Nears Completion on Duluth’s Waterfront, Providing Great Harbor Views and a Private Boat Ramp ccording to construction workers, busi- ness partners and city employees, Sandy Hoff and Alex Giuliani are in lockstep. “They will ask questions,” Giuliani said. “We will look at each other, and we’ve become so good together that we can finish each other’s sentences. People kid that we are like a married couple because we are constantly together working on the project. It’s been fun to have a friend and a business partner that you really care for.” “The project” is the $29.1 million Pier B Resort and Silos restaurant next to Bayfront Festival Park on the far western edge of Canal Park in Duluth. The 140-room hotel, event space and waterfront playground sits on 7.4 acres and 2,100 feet of shoreline looking out at the Lake Superior harbor and Aerial Lift Bridge. 36 Duluthian march.april 2016 Giuliani, Hoff and their dozen or so silent partners kicked off construction in early 2015 and plan to open in early June. The goal is to have no vacant rooms for Duluth’s summer kickoff event on June 18. “We would certainly love to fill it up for Grandma’s Mara- thon,” Hoff said. The genesis for Pier B started seven years ago when Hoff, president of the F.I. Salter Co. Inc. real estate group, was approached by Lafarge, a building materials company that operated on a section of the pier. Lafarge was consolidating operations in Superior, Wis., and reached out to Hoff to do an appraisal. After that, Lafarge asked Hoff to sell the 3.7-acre site. Hoff said his “first trek” was to City Hall, where he spoke with the Duluth Economic Development Authority (DEDA) to discuss acquiring the DEDA half of the pier, and the Planning Commission about rezoning that section of the waterfront “to