(Credit: Luke Mosseau, 2022)
Jeff Flagg explains the vertical farming model. He is standing inside "the box in a box" at 22 Ridge Street.
The city’s Urban Agriculture Project — located at 22 Ridge St. on the third floor of the Lapham and Parks Building — reached its final stages with the installation of a 1-ton heat pump system on the building’s roof that will offer climate control in the indoor farm. It was installed Friday Dec. 9.
The farm, which will grow leafy greens from cilantro to lettuce as part of a state pilot program, has been in the pipeline for well over a year, according to Glens Falls’ Economic Development Director Jeff Flagg.
“We’ve been talking about doing some sort of creative indoor farming; a way to sort of repurpose hard-to-use spaces,” said Flagg.
If this project successfully proves to be economically viable, the state will look to continue similar efforts in other regional cities. “The ultimate goal of the project is to test its commercial viability for replication,” said Flagg.
[Read our earlier story on this, here.]
Paid for by a grant of roughly $100,000 from Empire State Development’s Smart Cities Innovation Partnership, the project will cost nearly $200,000, with the city paying the other half, according to Flagg. The majority of the money has gone to equipment and labor to install it.
“We’re the municipal test bed so to speak,” said Flagg. “The produce that we grow here will eventually be sold to local restaurants,” as a way to mitigate supply chain issues and bring down shipping costs.
The third floor of the building at 22 Ridge is in rough shape. Having been vacant for over a decade, the space has torn walls and creaky floors, with dirty windows looking out onto central downtown. The third floor used to include a Tae Kwon DO dojo, and even a meeting place for local freemasons, Flagg said.
The building’s third floor is owned, and was donated, by Brian Bronzino. One of many “in-kind” donations that also include help from National Grid and smart technology from New York City-based Re-Nuble.
Re-Nuble is an agricultural technology company aimed at indoor farming and the circular economy that looks to use, and resuse, products and by-products of farming for as long as possible.
The Glens Falls project is one of their first attempts to show how vertical farming like this can not only produce a product but create a sustainable business model. They hope to show how it can scale to a larger size and can be replicated in other locations, their website says. For that reason, they are funding their portion of the trial.
"Our goal is to create a modular, turn-key vertical farming model that can demonstrate optimal sustainability, operational efficiencies, and equitable agriculture," a blog post on the Re-Nuble site, written by Josh Fabian, says.
Flagg describes the indoor farm as a “box-in-a-box.” The 400-square foot climate controlled “box” inside the building will house simple and low maintenance plants on sliding, vertical racks for efficient spacing. Fabian will supervise the operation.
With the use of Re-Nuble’s smart technology, Fabian will be able to read and monitor the farm’s levels remotely, said Flagg.
“One of the final stages will be the installation of a reverse osmosis watering system,” Flagg said, adding that they hope to harvest sometime in January, 2023.
The space still needs some work, Flagg said, but should be up and running by year's end with the first harvest as early as mid-February.