Residents seek to market the city’s amenities

Fifty Albert Lea residents kicked off a new initiative Tuesday night aimed at marketing the city to visitors and residents.

Called Experience Albert Lea, the initiative is the brainchild of former basketball coach and Alliance Benefit founder Al Arends, but has since incorporated community leaders and residents from multiple walks of life.

Arends said he was sitting on his deck one day looking across Fountain Lake when it hit him how beautiful the lake was. He started thinking about how people in the community could market all of Albert Lea’s resources and ultimately increase the city’s population.

He reached out to several people and began talking about the idea, realizing that there is not one common website where people can go to find out about Albert Lea. They agreed they wanted to develop a new landing Web page for Albert Lea that could in turn lead people to sites such as the Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce, the Albert Lea Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Albert Lea Economic Development Agency and the city of Albert Lea, to name a few. Mariah Lynne and Abby Murray of The Marketing Plant are creating a website for the initiative

The initial group, which included community leaders such as Chamber Executive Director Randy Kehr, CVB Director Susie Petersen and others, developed six committees and then Arends said he went out to recruit people for the committees.

“Everyone I talked to felt Albert Lea had so much to offer,” Arends said. “It was just a matter of getting the word out.”

He said there are at least 200 jobs available in Albert Lea and no one available or trained to take them. He said Albert Lea needs to get young people to move in to take the jobs and to build its workforce. It also needs to encourage people that the city is a great place to retire.

Craig Hoium, former Austin community development director and now co-owner of Ron Holton Realty, is one of the chairmen for the initiative. He said he has lived in Albert Lea his entire life and loves the community.

“I think the community is awesome,” he said. “The community belongs to the citizens and they should be proud of it.”

He referenced recreational facilities, education and other amenities that make it a good place to live.

Arends talked about the community theater, great medical facilities, the downtown, walking trails and churches.

The purpose of the initiative is to help get the word out about what the city has to offer.

“We would like to turn this population thing around and see us start growing again,” Arends said.

The six committees in the initiative will be working independently to bring awareness. They are technology, media and public relations, young adult opportunities, business opportunities, local positive attitudes and retirement opportunities.

Organizers of the initiative said they hope to get the community involved in the project more in the future.