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New Era for Blazing Star Landing

City News May 22, 2025
An aerial view of a long, modern apartment building with a dark gray roof and multi-toned gray siding, surrounded by a parking lot with cars, and bare trees in a winter landscape.

By using state grants to help with cleanup costs, the City of Albert Lea continues to develop the Blazing Star Landing 1 parcel at a time. The city initially sought development of the entire 35-acre site as a whole, but soil contamination proved to be too big a barrier. The soil contamination resulted from a fire at a meatpacking facility in 2002. The city acquired the site after the meatpacking company went bankrupt. Now the city is seeing success with a private developer building apartments in the southwest corner in 2022, a new Kwik Trip proposed for the northeast corner, and more apartments proposed for a third parcel. Several acres will be left as green space. For more information, visit the Blazing Star webpage or watch this video on YouTube.