Tuesday's meeting of the Pulaski Town Council began with a public hearing from representatives of Vegg Inc., which maintains its headquarters in the old Jefferson Elementary school building. Fred Jeter, Chief Operating Officer of Vegg. Inc., gave an overview of the company's progress with the aim of garnering support from council for a Community Development Block Grant worth upwards of $100,000.
As Jeter explained, Vegg Inc. is planning to install a "vertical farm" in the auditorium of the old school and this will serve as the main growing area in the building. Former classrooms on the east side of the auditorium will be used by individual "farmer tenants." Two classrooms in the building are slated for workforce development programs that Vegg Inc. is creating with help from Virginia Tech and Virginia Western Community College.
The west wing of the building along Jefferson Avenue is partially collapsed but according to Jeter, will eventually become the new home of MOVA Technologies, which is a sister company of Vegg. At least two rooms at the Jefferson School will be used as labs under the direction of Alexander Yurista, Director of Research and Development at Vegg.
In April 2024, Yurista and Vegg Inc.'s Chief Development Officer Luke Allison unveiled a carbon capture device that extracted carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and repurposed the gas to accelerate the growth of lettuce. This same concept is set to be applied on a large scale to Vegg Inc.'s growing operations at the Jefferson School. According to Jeter, the vertical farming technique also uses less water and less energy than standard farming practices, as parts of the operation will be solar powered.
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