By Sarah Light, staff writer

By the end of August, Albert Leans who bike or jog will have a new trail to enjoy.

As one of the city of Albert Lea&8217;s projects for the year, a shared-user trail that city planning maps label the North Shore Trail will stretch from the boat marina behind the Brookside

Education Center to Pioneer Park and through the Lakewood and St. Theodore&8217;s cemeteries. The trail is to be lighted, too.

It will be enacted as part of a trail network planned for the city. It&8217;s a route over grass and along sidewalks that joggers already follow.

&8220;One of the main things people wanted to see was more trails and interconnectivity of the town,&8221; said City Engineer Steven Jahnke.

The project has been in the planning stages for about three years, Jahnke said. During that time, the city applied for grants two years in a row to help with the costs of the project, but both years, it was not selected to receive those grants.

So, the city decided to complete the project with its own funds, which will cost about $265,000, he said.

Because the proposed North Shore Trail goes through Lakewood and St. Theodore&8217;s cemeteries, the city made an agreement that it would maintain their shorelines as well as maintain the trail in those areas, in exchange for allowing the trail to pass through.

&8220;This is part of the bigger plan to get all the way around Fountain Lake and tie into the Blazing Star,&8221; Jahnke said.

The Blazing Star Trail begins at Frank Hall Park, heads east to a trailhead at the end of Garfield Avenue, then through a figure-eight pattern before stretching farther east under Interstate 35 and to Myre-Big Island State Park.

According to a planning map in City Hall that reveals some of the hopes for future trails in the city, the North Shore Trail will someday extend through City Beach and down to New Denmark Park. When the Blazing Star Landing is developed, a trail would connect the North Shore Trail with the Blazing Star Trail.

The city is now starting to advertise plans for the North Shore Trail and hopes to award a bid to a contractor at the Albert Lea City Council meeting March 26, Jahnke said. That contractor will have until the end of August to complete it.

Also as part of the project, a new wooden shelter will be erected at Pioneer Park.

This new shelter, said Parks & Recreation Director Jay Hutchison, will include a small kitchenette, an area for picnics and bathrooms.

Hutchison estimated this part of the project would be completed late summer to early fall.

&8220;I think it&8217;ll be a very nice project for the public,&8221; Hutchison said. &8220;When all is said and done, the public will really like what we did.&8221;

He said the city has been trying to get grants for the shelter during the last three years without any success. Now in light of the new trail, the opportunity came to put up the shelter.

The new shelter, which he estimated could accommodate 50 people at a time, will also put some pressure off of the shelters at Edgewater Park, especially with the Edgewater Park project in the near future, he said.

Eventually, Hutchison noted, there also will be a large playground at Pioneer Park, but, he noted, he wouldn&8217;t know more details about that until next year.