When middle-schooler Aaron McCargo Jr. used to walk by the massive brick building on Delaware Avenue on the way to school, he would imagine how it might be used.
Today, years later, food entrepreneur and celebrity chef McCargo knows just how to put the now-empty, 124-year-old former Campbell Soup warehouse to work – and to make it serve the people of Camden.
McCargo, with a group of partners, and the City of Camden have the plan to turn the historic landmark into the epicenter of food innovation with a vertical hydroponic produce farm, a fish farm raising tilapia, trout, and maybe shrimp, a second-floor of restaurants and bars and a supermarket experience for city residents who live in one of New Jersey's top food deserts.
The city has put out a request for proposals to architectural and engineering firms to prepare a concept plan, preliminary building plans, and a feasibility study for the "multipurpose food market, eatery, and indoor farm facility." The building's ground floor space totals 71,000 square feet.
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