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(ABC 6 News) – The City of Albert Lea is taking the next steps toward solving its housing crisis.
A study taken a couple years ago showed Albert Lea was over 300 units short of meeting housing needs.
“There is a need for housing, there are people coming here to work, but they can’t find a place to live,” said Ward 2 Councilor Larry Baker.
City council voted to make slow and steady progress toward filling that need at Monday’s meeting, when they approved allowing two developers build workforce priced single-family homes on several vacant city-owned lots.
Those lots have been owned by the city and sitting empty for over 19 years. The city looked at developing housing on the lots several times in the past, but due to things like the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 or the financial crisis of 2008, plans never moved forward until now.
“It seems like every time the city was looking at really doing something, something else came up which kinda put you on the back burner, but things seem to be going well now,” said Baker.
City council wants residents to know it’s considering housing to be its number one focus.
“More people that you have here, the more people that invest in homes here, the bigger your tax base is, which helps keep down the tax rates,” said Baker.
Before October, GFY Custom Crafts hopes to break ground on what will eventually become six single-family homes on the vacant lots along Fountain St and 7th Ave.
GFY Custom Crafts uses a style of building called modular housing, meaning the houses are built in a factory then placed on top of the foundation, rather than building on-site from the ground up.
Director of Operations, Brian Stanslaski, says after ordering the house, it typically takes about two months to make in the factory.
“During that time, we take care of all the site prep and digging the hole and doing the foundation,” said Stanslaski. “The house will show up to the site, we’ll use a crane to set it on to the foundation and attach it to the block, and then from that point it’s usually about three days after that we can turn the keys over and someone can move in.”
Stanslaski says another benefit to their modular style homes is the energy efficiency, due to using energy-efficient appliances and insulation during the building process.
“They’re energy star certified, so not only the low cost on the front end for the homeowners, which is amazing, it’s that month-to-month utility bill that’s, you know, cut in more than half,” said Stanslaski.
At the corner of Belmont St and Sparks Ave, developers from Turning Point Real Estate will build another three single-family homes.
“Those are in the planning stage, hopefully be able to start those late summer and get them built to be sold come springtime,” said Grant Kyllo, co-owner of Turning Point Real Estate.
Turning Point Real Estate has worked with the City of Albert Lea on renovating other homes in the area, but this is the company’s first shot at building a development from scratch.
Once that first phase of housing is complete, Turning Point Real Estate will move on to building six more single-family homes along six single-family homes on Washington Ave, Madison Ave, and Jefferson Ave.
The point of building just a few homes at a time is to not flood the market with a surplus of new homes that the community should feel rushed to fill.
“You don’t solve the housing problem, in my opinion, having done this for as long as I have, in one fell swoop, you solve it by making slow progress,” said Justin Erickson, an Albert Lea native and advisor to GFY Custom Crafts on the Albert Lea development project.
There’s not yet a set date as for when construction will begin, as the city and developers are now working to iron out the details of financing.
If you’d like to get on the wait-list for one of these future homes, you can contact GFY Custom Crafts or Turning Point Real Estate.