DULUTH — For years after the Essentia Duluth Heritage Sports Center was built, people wondered what to do with the “warming house” that sits above the Sill Rink.

First, it served primarily as a conference or meeting room, and more recently, it served as artist Tim Cortes’s public studio. After two years at the rink, though, Cortes decided to move out of the Heritage Center.

Earlier this year, Bob Nygaard approached Heritage Center President and CEO Jeff Stark about a donation to make some cosmetic improvements to the building in memory of his mother.

Stark asked Nygaard to hold off and let him think of perhaps a more practical improvement to the Heritage Center.

When Cortes moved out late this summer, Stark thought the space could be a weight room for hockey players at the Heritage C

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