“Edel was interested in ways of bringing back manufacturing jobs to the city,” explains Melanie Hoekstra, director of operations at The Plant. The building is uniquely suited to food production; it contains food-grade materials (these allow for legal and safe food preparation) because of its meatpacking history. Instead of combining farming with other types of manufacturing, The Plant is sticking entirely to food—and lots of it.
I think we posted something about this project last year, emphasizing aspects that are recurring Unconsumption topics: adaptive reuse — the conversion of existing buildings to new uses — and urban farming. (Though I’m not finding an earlier post about it in the Unconsumption archive. Ah, thanks, Tumblr search.) Anyway, it’s great to see that the project’s progressing nicely.