Progress 2023: Economic Opportunity

By KELLY WASSENBERG news@albertleatribune.com

BRICELYN — From the farm down the road to the kitchen table in front of you — the farm-totable movement has encouraged consumers to buy locally grown produce and locally raised livestock. Two Bricelyn farmers are taking that concept quite literally.

Brandon Goette had realized his wife, Erika, attended various social events that also served as direct sales events, but the target audience was always female. Why didn’t they make such events for men or better yet couples, and how they showcase their products and how easy they are to cook, especially lamb? The answer was simple — meat and greet parties.

“It’s mostly a way for people to try lamb in a non-scary environment,” said Erika Goette, noting customers can try the items without having to cook it themselves and the price point isn’t as intimidating because if they don’t like it, there are still other things to eat.   The couple finds some have already had a negative experience with the protein, which Erika Goette attributes to how the meat was prepared or where it was raised.

“I know a lot of cruises use Australian or New Zealand lamb, which has a whole different flavor profile than American lamb,” she said, explaining that the diet of the animals has a

Brandon and Erika Goette pose with the appetizer course for guests of a Dec. 30 event in Albert Lea. KELLY WASSENBERG/FOR THE TRIBUNE

“It’s mostly a way for people to try lamb in a non-scary environment.”

— Erika Goette

Brandon Goette grills lamb belly burnt ends outside the home of a customer who hired Goette Farms to do a meat party at their home in Albert Lea.

GOETTE

Continued from Front Page direct effect on the taste of meat.

“A lot of the lamb in Australia and New Zealand is grass-fed, grass-finished. Our lambs are finished on a green-based ration,” she said.

By adding protein into their diet, the lambs at Goette farms end up with intramuscular marbling that enhances the flavor of the meat, she said. The parties offer three different courses, much like a standard fine dining experience, except there is no salad followed by a main dish paired with a couple sides before indulging in dessert. There’s meat, meat and more meat.

Appetizers include items such as meat and cheese board, lamb belly burnt ends, ground beef/ ground pork meatball, and a tomato basil ground lamb slider, among others. Appetizers are followed by the weeknight protein

course. During this course attendees have the option to try items such as New York strip steak and leg of lamb which is prepared in a Brazilian grill style. They shave the meat off the bone allowing diners to try it plain or on a tortilla shell. The night rounds out with the white table cloth high-end date night course. Rack of lamb, lamb chops and ribeye are just a few of the items on the menu for this segment of the meal.

“You’re basically getting bite-sized samples of everything, so you’re not sitting down and eating an entire steak throughout the night,” Erika Goette said, noting that the average guest will consume between eight to 10 ounces of protein.

Menu items are served up buffet style so guests can walk through and decide what to take and how much.

“There’s always plenty,” Brandon Goette said. “In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever walked away from a party where we don’t leave a bunch of leftovers. We’ve kind of got it down to where we make sure we have enough for everyone to take as much as they want and then we always try to have extras that are cooked up that we leave with the host.” The Goettes began offering the meat parties as an option prior to the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic and restarted once guidelines allowed them to do so and according to Erika Goette, they are being received well. She said they are more popular from mid-November through March, particularly with businesses that want to provide a holiday party for their staff or for people who want to get together with friends and chase away the winter doldrums.

After they’ve described the menu items and how the night is going to flow, they tend to blend into the background while making themselves available for questions.

“We’ll change the tone of our party depending on what the group wants. If they want a super informative lecture, we’re totally happy to do that,” Erika Goette said. “But we’ve found a lot of people just want an informal get together with good food.”

Brandon Goette plays the role of chef for the evening at the events and uses a seasoning of his own creation.

“A lot of people have had a bad lamb experience, so they don’t want to try it again,” he said. He’s seen attitudes shift pretty quickly, though.

Guests have come up to

him at events and flatly stated they don’t like lamb, but by the end of the party they sing a different tune.

“By the end of the party they say, ‘It turns out I love lamb, I just didn’t like how it was prepared,” he said.

The couple even created their own simple seasoning to accentuate the flavors of the meat, and not mask it.

“I just let the meat speak for itself,” Brandon Goette said.

The response, they say, has been nothing but positive.

“People are absolutely loving it,” Erika Goette said. “They’re loving the opportunity to try different meats and get to have that connection with the producer — being able to ask the questions to know the hows and whys are you doing what you’re doing.”

By the numbers

8

Minimum number of guests for a meat party

2020

Year the Goettes hosted their first meat party

3

Types of animals the Goettes raise on their farm — sheep, cattle and chickens

Erika and Brandon Goette run Goette Farms out of their home in Bricelyn, which once belonged to Brandon Goette’s grandfather. KELLY WASSENBERGFOR THE TRIBUNE

IT’S FULL-SERVICE COFFEE-ON-THE-GO

NEW MOBILE COFFEE COMPANY IS MAKING ITS ROUNDS IN FIRST 6 MOS.

By Alex Guerrero alex.guerrero@albertleatribune.com

Between Starbucks, Caribou Coffee, Scooter’s Coffee and Mocha & Mini there are plenty of coffee shops in the area. And now there’s a mobile one: Carpenter Coffee.

The pop-up coffee shop is owned by husband-and-wife team Jonathan and Briana Back. Jonathan Back is a carpenter by trade.

The name actually came about because as he put it, furniture and creation went hand-in-hand.

To that effect, there’s a wood plane in the logo. He described the hand tool as something that wasn’t used often but was used in fine woodworking.

“We are a mobile, pop-up coffee shop serving fairtrade, organic, freshly roasted coffee,” Jonathan Back said. “We try to be a full-service coffee-on-thego, and we strive to be consistent and provide quality in all of our products,” he said.

The business started after he and his wife purchased the equipment in 2019 after moving to the area from Iowa.

“We started looking forward to what type

of business we want to start, and coffee was one of our front runners,” he said. “We actually talked to the owners of The Interchange before COVID and everything happened. They had a ‘For Sale’ sign on the building.”

But then the pandemic started, meaning the Back’s plans were put on hold. Since then, they’ve changed their plans to a mobile stand to adapt to the situation while still bringing what Back described as “quality” coffee to the area.

After being licensed in July, Carpenter Coffee was at the Albert Lea

Farmers Market on Saturdays through October, but they also popped up at different events, including a Wind Down Wednesday in Albert Lea and Kernel Days in Wells.

“It’s taken off a lot faster than we anticipated, which is a good thing,” he said. Their work began a year ago with sourcing, finding a distributor and getting an equipment supplier. They also bought a trailer, which he converted to a food trailer.

Carpenter Coffee now serves a full coffee shop menu, including freshsqueezed lemonade, drip coffee, espresso-based

drinks, fruit smoothies and teas.

“It’s kind of a full-beverage mobile coffee shop and smoothies,” he said. So far, the experience has taught Back to prepare for anything.

“Even if the weather is poor, you may anticipate lower numbers, but that’s not always the case,” he said.

Running a company has also taught him to be more flexible. And there was more work done behind the scenes.

But his favorite part of the experience is getting to interact with customers while providing what he called quality service.

For anyone interested in getting coffee from the Backs, the couple also offers fair-trade, organic, whole bean coffee in retail bags. Contact them through their Facebook page, Carpenter Coffee Co.

As Carpenter Coffee grows, they’re thinking about adding mobile ordering for pick-up. The duo also plans to offer more events in the future and they plan to do more catered events. He’d also like to establish more of circuit.

“In addition to Albert Lea, farmers markets and surrounding towns,” he said. He also wanted to thank everyone who came out to support them.

“We’ve only been open six months, but it’s been great to see familiar faces and new faces come out whenever we pop up,” he said.

Currently, Back does not plan to give up woodworking.

Briana Back, co-owner of Carpenter Coffee, works at an Albert Lea Farmers Market downtown on a Saturday. PROVIDED

A Carpenter Coffee latte. Carpenter Coffee owners Briana and Jonathan Back stand in their mobile food truck at a Wind Down Wednesday.

“It’s kind of a full-beverage mobile coffee shop and smoothies.”

— Jonathan Back

‘There is still opportunity there’

CITY CONDUCTING SOIL TESTING AT BLAZING STAR LANDING TO DETERMINE POSSIBILITIES

By Sarah Stultz sarah.stultz@albertleatribune.com

Albert Lea economic development leaders are hopeful soil testing done at the former Farmland Foods site this year and last will answer questions about the property and jumpstart development there after the land has sat unused for more than two decades.

Albert Lea City Manager Ian Rigg said for many years there has been the impression that there were only “a few problem spots” at the site from contamination left over from the former owner, but the full extent of that contamination had not been determined. He said those details are critical to know for construction purposes and the planning of where certain types of development will be placed.  Rigg said it is known that the former Wilson & Co. plant buried fly ash straight into the ground, and he noted that during soil testing and cleanup on the land south of the railroad tracks — where new apartments owned by Unique Opportunities LLC opened last year — crews pulled out barrels of unknown toxic chemicals that had been buried.

The soil in that part of the property tested positive for arsenic and underwent an extensive cleanup process before the apartments could be built, which involved not only city contribution but also funding from the state.

“I think some people assumed, ‘Well you could easily fix it,’ but costs have also gone up,” Rigg said. “It has to be a more thoughtout and careful approach because of how expensive construction is.”

The city before November had conducted one round of vapor testing on the more than 30-acre site north of the railroad tracks and in late December and early January had planned to conduct another sampling of the soil conditions, including testing for arsenic, petroleum and other substances. They hope to determine the prevalence of the contamination, as well as the depth concentration to figure out what kind of cleanup needs to occur, what kind of foundations need to be built on buildings going up on the property — which is now known as the Blazing Star

Landing — and what the more economical solution is to resolving the issue.

“Would it be better to put commercial here, housing? Can you put basements in, can you not? We’re going to get all those answers once they get done with the testing,” Rigg said.

He said the city has been contacted by developers looking into senior housing on the site, as well as market-rate and low-rate apartments, a series of small commercial sites and a grocery store. He classified the opportunities as regional or national developers.

“I think it’s a good general location for certain things,” Rigg said. “A goal of mine would be to try and get a grocery store there — a more centrally located one. I think that’s really vital for people that have limited transportation options.”

After the results of the testing are complete, he said they plan to go back to the developers who have shown interest and talk to them about those results and what the developers’ interests are.

“Their input and level of engagement will tell us the likelihood of getting that type of development in

that spot,” Rigg said.

From there the city will divide the 25 to 30 acres of usable land north of the tracks into subcategories for retail, housing and other types of development, as well as figure out utilities.

Then they will begin properly advertising the property. The city

manager said it will be considered shovel ready and information will be available about the soils to provide to businesses. They will also know remediation costs so they can figure out incentive packages to offer and whether they need to go to the state to request more funding.

“There is still opportunity there,” said Albert Lea Economic Development Agency Executive Director Phillip Johnson. “You’re looking at undeveloped land in the middle of a city center.”

Johnson said the information about the soil is vital to have when talking to developers. He said most of them have five- to 10-year timelines.

“You have to fit in that timeline in order to be a viable area,” he said.

Both men acknowledged the previous plans that had been conducted by the city and community for the land, some of which included moving East Front Street north, attracting a hotel and convention center, and collaborating on a community center, previously estimated at $25 million to $30 million, which would now likely be upwards of $60 million.

Plans are complicated now by the fact that the city needs to get $60 million for upgrades at its wastewater treatment plant. Rigg said though they would still like the community center, at this point he would rather get state funding for the sewer plant to complete that project and keep people’s sewer rates down.

Johnson said though everyone would love a community center or something that brings the same opportunities, the focus now is to shift it into the private market.  “If we can continue to grow development in the area … once we get those developments moving there and get people from a traffic perspective there, then it will become more of a place just like the north side of town or the downtown or even South Broadway where people are coming to now, that is going to affect and attract more traffic, which in turn affects and attracts more development,” he said.

Rigg said the newly constructed apartments show that it is possible to build on the property and also that the need exists for more housing. He said within three to six weeks of opening, the complex had all of its market rate units rented.

“They proved essentially the studies we’re looking at,” Johnson said.

The owner is in talks with the city about additional phases.

“What happened with Unique is that … it showed a lot of people we can do a lot more than what has been done and we should not doubt the idea it can get developed and built, but it is going to take effort and planning, and it is going to take a little bit of time, too,” Rigg said.

He said it is a shame the prior owners of the property treated the land the way it did, particularly being so close to Albert Lea Lake. He also noted the importance of following regulations, which are put in place to protect from problems like this years down the line.

“The property has its challenges, but now that we understand or are getting an understanding of the property, we can address those challenges and hopefully create opportunities,” Johnson said.

The city of Albert Lea is in the middle of soil samples throughout the Blazing Star Landing to determine the condition and contaminants of the soil. The site is the former location of Farmland Foods, which burned down in 2001. SARAH STULTZ/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE

The new 48-unit apartment complex by Unique Opportunities on the Blazing Star Landing opened for tenants this year.

“The property has its challenges, but now that we understand or are getting an understanding of the property, we can address those challenges and hopefully create opportunities.”

— Albert Lea Economic Development Agency Executive Director Phillip Johnson

‘A place people want to come’

SENIOR CENTER DIRECTOR SETS GOALS FOR PROGRAMMING, REACHING MORE PEOPLE

By Sarah Stultz sarah.stultz@albertleatribune.com

As the leader of the Albert Lea Senior Center, April Jeppson has high hopes this year. With the Albert Lea YMCA taking over the programming at the center from the city in 2021 after it was closed for more than a year due to the pandemic, there has already been a shift in some activities — but Jeppson hopes to do more.

The goals come as the YMCA continues taking on more of the responsibilities at the Senior Center as part of a partnership with the city. The city continues to financially support the operations and in 2023 will contribute $50,100 a year for operations plus $48,000 in rent costs, said Cathy Malakowsky, community engagement and enrichment director for the city.

Jeppson said in 2022, the YMCA ran the programming that took place during the day at the Senior Center and collected money from members for coffee and treats. Membership fees were turned in to the city, and the city in turn paid the rent at Skyline Plaza, along with utilities and other bills. The city also handled evening and weekend rentals of the facility and the trips.

In a new contract that started in January, the city is continuing to pay the rent and will be giving the YMCA $4,175 a month to run the center, which in turn the YMCA will use to pay for supplies, telephone, internet and other fees, as well as staffing. The YMCA is also taking over evening and weekend rentals, as well as the day trips.

“Instead of us just making sure the doors are open and that there’s coffee in the morning and programs happening, we’re a little more involved now,” Jeppson said.

Malakowsky said the city is giving the YMCA staff the freedom and responsibility for all programming, marketing, setting membership fees and even how the center looks inside.

“We are very excited to

see what the Family Y can do with the Senior Center, especially with how strong the center and its programs have rebounded since COVID,” she said. Jeppson works with four other part-time employees at the Senior Center, and she said now that they have access to the building in the evenings and on the weekends, they hope to add on additional programming outside of traditional hours for seniors who may not be able to attend classes during the day.

“The Senior Center is for 55-plus,” she said. “A lot of people who are 55 are still working, and so they’re not even able to come here during the daytime because they’re working. My hope is that sooner rather than later we’ll be able to offer different things here.”

The Senior Center continues to offer many of the same activities that people have always enjoyed, including bingo, cards, pool, crafting and knitting. Recently they added a painting class and hope to be able to implement more artistic opportunities.

Jeppson said she is

also excited about the upcoming trips planned and said they have taken input from members about places they would like to go and things they would like to see. She would like to consider possible Saturday trips to accommodate more people.

Included in the weekly schedule is everything from cribbage and coffee to aerobics, a building bones class, crafts and bridge, among other card games.

In addition to the regular schedule, the January

and February calendars included Coffee with a Cop, Memory Cafe, a Bring a Friend Week in honor of Valentine’s Day, and a class on emergency response basics, among others. The center hosts a birthday party every

month to celebrate the members who have birthdays during the month.

Jeppson encouraged people to reach out if there’s something they would like to see added to the calendar and to come check it out if they have never been — or haven’t been recently.

“The big message I want to get out is, yes, there’s some programming we’ve had before, but we also have new things,” she said.

She joked that the Senior Center is probably the most inexpensive social club out there.

Bingo only costs 15 cents a card to play, and if people want refreshments the treats are only 75 cents and coffee is 75 cents, too.

Otherwise, it is free with a membership to come to play pool and cards or just to socialize with a membership.

Malakowsky said she has been out to the Senior Center a few times to take photos and she enjoys seeing all of the seniors there having a good time.

She referenced one time she went and met a group of women who meet together to work on crochet projects. She also met a woman who moved to Albert Lea from Willmar to be with family and starting coming to the Senior Center and met several new friends.

“It seems like they are having a lot of fun out there,” she said.

Malakowsky said she loves that the city can partner with the Y and offer more value to people.

Many seniors can use their insurance to pay for their membership at the YMCA, which in turn also includes membership to the Senior Center.

For people who do not have insurance to cover their YMCA membership and who want a Senior Center membership alone, the annual fee is $30. Jeppson said scholarships are available for people who need financial assistance, and if transportation is an issue, people should reach out about that as well.

“I want this to be a place people want to come,” she said.

In late December, Jeppson said the Senior Center had about 300 members and continues to grow. She knows she has only scratched the surface on the seniors who live in the city, and she hopes to continue to attract more in the future.

She also hopes to continue to partner with other organizations in the community and get the word out more about the center through the city and other organizations such as Albert Lea Community Education.

Both Jeppson and Malakowsky stressed the social impact the Senior Center can have for residents.

“There’s no need to be lonely or feel depressed,” Malakowsky said. “I think the Senior Center can be a really important place to feeling like they belong.”

DR.

A group of women come over to the Albert Lea Senior Center a few days each week after their swimnastics class at the YMCA to enjoy some coffee and socialization. SARAH STULTZ/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE

Jim Swenson recently started playing pool at the Albert Lea Senior Center, along with Larry Olson, back, Art Hughes, Gary Hoyne and Norm Seberson, not pictured.

Members of the Albert Lea Rotary Club serve food to members of the Senior Center in December during the Christmas luncheon.

Senior Center members take part in a painting class in December. PROVIDED

WCTA bringing ‘latest and best features’ with fiber optics

By Alex Guerrero alex.guerrero@albertleatribune.com

A new internet provider is coming to Albert Lea, and they’re bring fiber optics with them.

That’s according to Mark Thoma, CEO of Winneabago Cooperative Telecom Association, who described WCTA as a fiber optic broadband company that also offered digital television cable TV.

“WCTA saw this as a great fit to continue our growth in providing customers with the latest of technology, which is fiber optics,” he said.

According to Thoma, fiber optics uses light and data through glass at a rate faster than anything else currently available.

“Basically a pair of glass, or fiber strand, has enough capacity to allow half the world’s population [to] make a phone call to the other half of the population on just one single fiber strand,” he said.

Thoma said the technology was something that would grow with customer needs as band-width and speed grow in the future.

“Fiber optics is the latest and best features for low-latency,” he said.

“… During COVID a lot of people did work from home, got familiar with Zoom calls and [video calls].”

For those to work, there needed to be two-way communication, meaning sending and receiving information such as pictures in real time at the same time, a term known as symmetrical service. And fiber optics can offer that.

The project has already begun, with Thoma noting the company had been placing and burying pipe for the last two years, a process he admitted took a little longer and was more expensive.

“It actually is a ring,” he said.

According to Thoma, WCTA deployed fiber as rings. That way, if a fiber or main lead of a fiber

distribution was cut, information could simply reverse course the other way.

But, he said, burying would provide more resilience and better protection because it wouldn’t be as subjected to extreme weather.

“We put [the fiber optics] into the pipe first, or we put pipe in the ground, and then we pull the fiber into the pipe,” he said.

He described the process of building new fiber optics as a year-long cycle, with building throughout the summer followed by fiber splicing, testing and electronic installation before fiber conversions.

Thoma anticipated installing new customers in late spring after they receive results from summer 2022’s construction season. He is hopeful to have the

entire town of Albert Lea converted to fiber optics in the next two to three years.

“It’s important to reach

out and provide fiber optics for all of our members, existing and surrounding communities,”

Thoma said. “We see it as a huge economic factor for growth for our members and also for our communities that we serve.”

WCTA was also working on poling the fiber and spend the end of 2022 working on the west side of Albert Lea. WCTA already has customers in Albert Lea from 2021 and has been in the industrial park for over a decade.

“We had to complete our existing member base, transitioning from copper-based internet and services to fiber optic in our existing member territory before we could fully invest this type of dollar commitment, man-hours, to a community the size of Albert Lea,” he said, referring to the 29 communities the company provides services to, from Lakota and Bancroft in the

west, Grafton in the east, northwest Mason City to the south and Albert Lea in the north. Thoma estimated the entire project would cost several million, with the company paying for the upgrades.

The company was established in 1950 as a cooperative in Thompson, Iowa, before moving to Lake Mills.

“Basically rural telephone companies and in particular cooperatives began to serve rural customers that didn’t have telephone service,” he said. “So co-ops — so it’s member-owned — put in money … to help begin the co-op and to establish lines that they would put up, aerial telephone lines to help serve rural customers out of the urban centers.”

Mark Thoma, CEO of Winnebago Cooperative Telecom Association, holds up a cable with smaller cords inside. Inside those smaller cords are fiber optics. ALEX GUERRERO/ ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE

A map of the area WCTA will cover after completing fiber optic work, which is expected in the late spring. PROVIDED

Bringing floors and heirlooms ‘back to life’

By Alex Guerrero alex.guerrero@albertleatribune.com

Troy Irvine is the owner of two local businesses in the same building, Furniture Restoration of Minnesota and Mr. Sandless, which does hardwood floor restoration and refinishing.

“There’s really a big need for furniture refinishing right now cause nobody really does it in the area,” Irvine said. “There’s some in the Twin Cities that are doing it, but there’s really nobody in southern Minnesota, northern Iowa, that are refinishing furniture.”

Born and raised in Albert Lea, Irvine enjoys restoring items and “bringing them back to life,” and to that effect most of his work includes restoring older tables and family heirlooms, a work he described as “an honor.”

By doing so, he’s also saving customers from having to go out and buy new items.

“In high school I really enjoyed shop class and learning about how to sand wood and refinish it, things like that,” he said. “I’ve always had kind of a knack for refinishing things and bringing them back. I don’t like to throw things away, I like to restore what we have

if we can. I think the old furniture is built much better than the new stuff and lasts longer.”

Irvine said he restored almost anything made of wood, including cabinets, tables, chairs, end tables, hutches and dressers.

He described the process of bringing a floor or worn furniture back to life as “fun,” and he has learned persistency was key, as was customer response.

“You need to call customers back if they call you,” he said. “You need to respond and call them back and show them attention, and if you do that you’ll be successful.”

And doing right by customers has helped to attract new business.

Rita Rae used Irvine’s Mr. Sandless business on two separate occasions, once for a house she was selling in Freeborn back in May and again after she purchased a home in Albert Lea in September. She originally heard about Mr. Sandless through social media.

“He was very kind and professional,” she said.

“He did my project in a timely manner. I was able to get those floors done before I moved into my new property, which was good.”

She said she also thought his prices were reasonable and said both projects were completed in a timely manner.

Irvine’s restoration business is in the Skyline Plaza,1647 W. Main St., next to Bomgaars. The business is open by appointment only. To schedule an appointment, visit their Facebook page at Furniture Restoration of Minnesota, furniturerestorationminnesota. com or call 507-391-9100. His newest business has been open since summer 2022, while he’s owned the Mr. Sandless business for seven years. One key difference between the two: Furniture Restoration of Minnesota is an on-site business, whereas Mr. Sandless goes to people’s homes.

By the numbers 250

Roughly the number of Mr. Sandless businesses around the country

7

Years Irvine has operated Mr. Sandless

2

Businesses Irvine runs

Troy Irvine is owner of Furniture Restoration of Minnesota, a business he started in the summer of 2022. ALEX GUERRERO/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE

Irvine’s restoration business is located in the Skyline Plaza, 1647 W. Main St., next to Bomgaars.

“In high school I really enjoyed shop class and learning about how to sand wood and refinish it, things like that.”

— Troy Irvine