The first vertical farm in a downtown office building in the U.S. is now in Chicago, and it's just the start. It's about as fresh as it gets. They cut cilantro with scissors, put it into containers, and get it ready to send off to local restaurants, where it could be on the plate that same night.
It's all grown right in a Loop office building on La Salle Drive. In fact, a law firm used to occupy the space. Now it's a revolutionary new kind of farm. "We don't have the challenge of pesticides. We don't have pests and rodents and things like adverse weather conditions knocking out entire crops," Farm Zero CEO Russ Steinberg said.
Right now, they grow everything inside a 500-square-foot space in trays with a hydroponic system for drip watering that recirculates. There's no actual soil. It's a cotton-like material. And LED lights are a fine substitute for sunlight.
Right now, they have a somewhat limited capacity, but they are growing quickly with plans for a massive new site at the former home of Roosevelt University on South State Street. The building is 137-years-old, and takes up an entire block at about half a million square feet. It's plenty of space to grow a tremendous amount of food.
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