Kirk Apartments site being filled in, what’s next for the property?

MASON CITY — The filling in of the basement foundation is happening at the former site of the Kirk Apartments in downtown Mason City. The building was destroyed by fire in late April with demolition starting in mid-May. City Administrator Aaron Burnett says by city code, the property has to be filled in and seeded so it returns the property to a bare lot.

Burnett hopes the discussion can ramp up soon on what’s next for that piece of land.  “We are very interested, we being any of the folks that are involved in the community, really want to see that property brought back to a useful purpose. It’s a bare lot that we can work to construct either new housing or some other benefit to the downtown.”

Burnett says most of the interest has been to put some sort of housing back on that block. “We’ve had initial conversations with the property owner to talk with what will be the future of that property and some potential outcomes. Hopefully we are able to figure something out and get it back developed again as quickly as possible, knowing that it’s a large space in our downtown, and an important part of our downtown that now is empty and needs to be filled back up, and bring more people into our downtown.”

Over 40 housing units were lost with the fire.