Spotlight On: Phillip Johnson, Executive Director, Albert Lea Economic Development Agency
April 2025 — The number one challenge for the city of Albert Lea is housing availability. “The housing piece is so critical because people need places to stay,” said Phillip Johnson, the executive director of Albert Lea Economic Development Agency in an interview with Invest:.
What have been the main highlights and key milestones for the Albert Lea Economic Development Agency during the last year?
I think the biggest areas we’ve continued to grow in are both of our industrial parks. Since I’ve been here, which has been since 2019, that’s been one of the key areas our board has wanted to grow, and we have been successful with that. There had been some stagnation over the past 20 years in those parks, so we changed our process and tried other avenues to draw in new business.
Over the last year, we’ve seen Vortex Cold Storage expand with a $30 million project, which is currently in phase two. They built their first phase a couple of years ago, and their plan is still to have two more phases; this phase was another 100,000 square feet. Their first phase was 175,000 square feet, both to the tune of about $30 million. They cover a 26-acre plot in our South Industrial Park, and while nothing is set in stone, I believe more phases are possible.
Design Ready Controls, which is another new business in our South Industrial Park, continues to expand as well. They develop the batteries that most cities use for their electric buses that charge in about five minutes. They’ve increased their employment; they started at 50, and I think they’re closer to 80 or 90. We’re hoping in the next year they’ll be in the 120 range. Their investment in the area has been tremendous and it helps Albert Lea work towards growing its clean technology portfolio as well.
We also just solidified a $54 million project called Green Acres. They’re going to be building an oat mill. Oat products have become prolific in the United States over the last 10 years. Think about the dairy section at a grocery store and you go to it and now half of it is non-dairy items. I think we’ll continue to go in that direction. They’re going to start the oat mill in the spring of 2025 in our South Industrial Park. It will be a great investment and a fantastic regional project as all the oats will come from different regions, in Minnesota and Iowa, but also some in the Dakotas and Wisconsin. A lot of those farmers as well are invested in the mill, which also helps grow local and regional farm wealth.
What other projects are relevant for your organization?
Manufacturing industrial parks is a big piece of what we look at doing here. That’s a huge part of our history, which was started right after World War II to grow jobs and businesses. Downtown is another area of interest because it’s such a barometer of health for a community. We’ve continued to work on that, especially on our Main Street. We just opened a new wood-fired pizza place and coffee shop. A bakery opened in February of 2025, and we’re looking at getting an ice cream store in as well to add to the many great businesses that already occupy our downtown.
The city invested in streetscaping in the downtown area a couple of years before I got here. We’ve focused over the last couple of years on making sure it’s a walkable destination with different businesses and areas to hop around from a retail perspective and an eatery perspective. We’ve been making good strides on that front and will continue to push to make more. We may have a few more eateries coming next year as well, but we are still solidifying those plans.
Housing is always the giant question mark in the room, and we’ve been working on that. Within the last couple of years, we’ve had two market-rate apartment groups put up about 100 units between them. The last few decades put us into quite a hole and we have been in a huge deficit. We’ve been around a 1.5% vacancy rate ever since before I got here and are working to fix that issue. We’re working with six other groups right now and trying to get agreements together for 2025 to hopefully move forward in 2026. Housing is the most crucial piece to the puzzle and the city and ALEDA are doing all they can to grow that into the future so we can have a workforce for our new businesses and existing businesses that are looking to expand.
What other main industries and sectors are driving growth?
We still have a lot of health care services with Mayo here and a few other independent doctors. There is a group looking to bring another large competitive health industry into our market. I don’t know whether that will or won’t go yet, but the healthcare industry will continue to be here for a long time. Food processing, light manufacturing and now clean technology businesses, either new or existing, are driving a lot of the growth that is taking place.
How is the EDA helping businesses to grow and expand operations?
When I first got here in 2019, we worked on a five-year strategic plan with all of our partners. That plan has set the benchmark and guidelines for how we run the organization and support growth in our communities.
One of the main things we provide is connecting all the different partners to bring a project from start to finish. When we do a project we’re working with the county, the city, Freeborn-Mower, which is our electric co-op, and then the state. We do have some of our own incentives, whether that’s incentivizing lands, incentivizing buildings or our low-interest loans which are either revolving or through the USDA. Due to how ALEDA is set up, we bring a different package than most other EDA’s. In most areas, the EDA is either funded by the city, the county, or both. We add to that other leg and make sure that we have our own set of incentives when we go forward. This gives us more of an ability to help new businesses and existing businesses grow.
What makes Albert Lea a great place to live, work, and play?
I think from a logistical standpoint, aesthetic and cost of living standpoint, we really are in a great position. We are strategically located along I-90 and I-35 as well as our rail lines, with many gorgeous lakes, plus the affordability of the area compared to many others makes this area such a gem. That’s why the housing piece is so critical because if we can provide what is required and more, Albert Lea and Freeborn County will flourish and will be an example of how rural growth can take place. Albert Lea and Freeborn County are putting in place the necessary building blocks to be that model and the future is exciting.
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