Commercial Locksmith in Duluth, MN

Duluth's business buildings and their doors

Each of Duluth's commercial districts asks something different of a lock.

• Canal Park. Warehouses here began turning into hotels, restaurants, cafes and shops in the 1980s, so in a converted building it is worth asking which openings are original and which were added later. The DECC connects indoors to the downtown skywalk system, and a building on an indoor walkway has connecting doors to plan for beside its street doors.
• West Superior Street, Lincoln Park. Along its 1800 and 1900 blocks, the Lincoln Park inventory finds commercial buildings going back as far as 1886. They are mostly one to three stories of brick, stone or terra cotta, with big display windows at street level and flats or offices above. The shop and the people upstairs usually need separate keys, even when their doors sit side by side.
• West Michigan Street. Old warehouses and factories there often had a storefront on the main facade and loading bays and docks on the sides and rear. Dock and rear doors call for heavier hardware than a customer entrance.
• Highway 53 corridor. In Duluth Heights, the 1973 opening of Miller Hill Mall drew many businesses, some from downtown, out to the corridor. A tenant inside a mall generally works under the landlord's rules on locks and keys.

Turnover and keys

Each staff or tenant departure can leave keys in circulation.

1. When someone leaves with a key, rekey the doors that key opened. Lock rekeying keeps the existing hardware.
2. In a mixed-use building, keep residential tenants' keys separate from the business's, so a change upstairs does not force new keys downstairs.
3. A master key system lets one key open a group of doors while each door keeps its own key.
4. Keep a written log of who holds which key, and collect keys at exit.

What to include in a request

The district and street, the building type, and each door involved: storefront, stair door, rear service door or dock door. Say whether you own or lease the space and who must approve lock changes, whether a master key system exists, and when the premises can be worked on. For the wider picture, see commercial locksmith service and the Duluth overview.