Dreams of landing a Fortune 500 company were shattered last week with the news that Ford Motor Company has picked Menomonie as the site for a distribution warehouse.

Albert Lea residents felt obvious disappointment. People wanted to land a company to replace the old Farmland plant as a staple of the Albert Lea economy.

City Manager Paul Sparks said the city will move forward with what has been learned through the process. One of the first steps forward the city will take is marketing the Habben industrial site, which was offered to Ford, to other companies.

&uot;I think the first thing we need to do is inform Farmland that the site is still available,&uot; City Manager Paul Sparks said. &uot;But, we are also going to begin to market the site for other companies looking to build distribution warehouses and other types of industry.&uot;

Sparks said that he feels Albert Lea is in a very good location to become part of the new distribution economy. Ford is one of the first companies to increase the number of regions they have in order to make availability and speed of product delivery more customer friendly. Sparks said it looks as if this trend is spreading to other companies quickly.

The Habben industrial site is owned by the city, and Sparks said the city will be working on marketing the site to other companies through real-estate companies throughout the country who work with industry development and warehouse sites.

Contractors looking at the sites for the Ford contract had said they felt the Albert Lea site could have been graded more to make development on the site faster.

Sparks said the city will soon be looking into projects that would grade the site to flatten it and make it more construction friendly. Mayor Bob Haukoos said the site is in very good building condition at present but said the city will consider grading if it will help marketing.

Sparks reiterated that Ford has said their problem with Albert Lea was based on state taxes, not the city’s offer.

&uot;They did know that Minnesota’s tax rates were higher in the first place,&uot; he said. &uot;But they needed a site in this region and they needed to find a large industrial park site that was ready to build on. Menomonie just happened to have a comparable site to ours.&uot;

Sparks said that the city will go after every opportunity it gets like this in the future. &uot;We know that Minnesota taxes don’t help us. But if we don’t try when we have an opportunity, what can we say for ourselves?&uot; he said.

A more focused marketing plan may be initiated by the city, in hopes that Albert Lea can become a spot for companies who would like to service Minneapolis and Des Moines through distribution, Sparks said..

&uot;We need to do some target marketing to get other companies who are interested in this region for distribution. If nothing else, we can put our name in the back of their minds.&uot;