Jump to content

ol_ironstomach

Recommended Posts

Spike Gjerde's recent interview with Eater mentioned this ambitious project, apparently in the works for a couple of years now, but only recently picking up steam.  A ten million dollar redevelopment of an East Baltimore pumping station at 1801 E Oliver St, the Baltimore Food Hub aims to create a large (3.5 acre) campus and incubator of local producer and service businesses to develop and promote the region's food, with emphasis on farm-to-table and social enterprise.

The project hopes to provide job training, microfinance, production agriculture (through a separate half-acre greenhouse site), distribution, catering, and kitchen services.  Project manager and urban planner Greg Heller's resumé includes the somewhat smaller Dorrance H. Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises in Philadelphia.  Humanim will operate a job skills development component, although it doesn't sound as if they're quite as vertically integrated as DCCK (which, I think, would have been a natural fit for a satellite operation).

IMHO, this is a brilliant and synergistic initiative.  The region has the variety, the cultural history, and the ability to produce extraordinary foods, but hasn't always done so in a coordinated fashion.  Baltimore's long-suffering neighborhoods are ripe for renewal; having a single-stop incubator to develop the necessary neighborhood food businesses would go a long way towards successfully anchoring redevelopment beyond Federal Hill and the areas adjacent to Inner Harbor.

This first link contains an overview presentation:

http://christopherwink.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Food-Hub-Presentation-Feb-08-2013-No-Budgets.pdf

http://www.americancommunitiestrust.org/initiatives/item/89-baltimore-food-collaborative.html

http://www.baltimorefoodhub.com/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...