27-05-2025
Grow Erie facility produces lettuce and herbs in Savocchio Park. It also makes a statement
Bags of fresh kale and tender microgreens — distributed last week at an open house of the Grow Erie facility in Savocchio Park — are a reminder of what the new $5 million facility was built to do.
But supporters of the project say the crops grown there and the revenue they will produce only hints at its value.
The 17,000-square-foot facility at 1811 Paragon Drive was built in the middle of a former brownfield in one of Erie's poorest neighborhoods.
Developed by the Erie County Redevelopment Authority, the newly opened complex is owned by the Minority Community Investment Coalition, formed in 2016 by the Booker T. Washington Center, Martin Luther King Jr. Center and Urban Erie Community Development Corp.
Scientific support and design work for the facility come from a partnership with Integrated Agriculture Systems, known as INTAG.
The facility, which already has produced its first crops, is expected to benefit the community by providing jobs to neighborhood residents, returning money to MCIC and by supporting the construction and operation of a community garden, where residents can grow their own food.
The Erie-based Curtze Co., which serves the restaurant industry, already has signed on to be a lead customer for food grown in the commercial facility.
Paul Nickerson, lead designer for INTAG, said the 17,000-square-foot facility provides a climate-controlled space where lettuce, kale and herbs are grown in plastic trays that keep the roots of those plants immersed in water.
It's a common misconception, he said, that plants can't survive when their roots are submerged. The problem isn't the water, but the lack of oxygen. A special oxygen concentrator addresses that problem, he said.
"You can't drown a plant, but you can suffocate it," Nickerson said.
Elsewhere in the building, purple growing lights illuminate trays of microgreens, which are grown in potting soil and grow to maturity in between eight and 20 days.
Like the plants in the greenhouse, the microgreens are fertilized using processed fish sludge. For now, that sludge comes from the Fairview State Fish Hatchery. Eventually, the fish waste will be produced on site once the facility begins growing its own fish, Nickerson said.
Grow Erie is designed to benefit a social need, but it still faces the challenges of turning a profit, he said.
"You can't just give the crops away," Nickerson said. "Look at our power bill. These oxygen concentrators cost a lot of lettuce to run."
Tina Mengine, CEO of the Erie County Redevelopment Authority, was among those on hand to show off the facility last week.
"It's exciting. It's been a long time coming," she said. "This project embodies what economic development is. You take a brownfield that sat dormant for 20 years. It will employ people and will bring high-tech agriculture to the center of the city."
Candace Battles, a retired social worker who is a board member of Our West Bayfront, was impressed.
"I think it's awesome," she said. "They are bringing something new to a community where people wouldn't have had these opportunities."
Funding for the project — $5.6 million in all — came from a variety of sources, including grants from the Erie Community Foundation, Erie County and the city of Erie.
But the idea came from the eastside community itself, said Gary Horton, who is both president of the NAACP in Erie and founder and CEO of the Urban Erie Community Development Corp.
"The idea for the project came not out of the mayor's office, not the authority, but out of the minds of Black and Brown people and new Americans," Horton said.
In short, the concept was homegrown.
"There are so many people who think poor Black and Brown people can't do anything, but no one rode into our neighborhood on a white horse," Horton said.
On one level, the Grow Erie project is being scored as a success.
The project is among those included in Infinite Erie's Investment Playboook and it's the first to be completed, said Kim Thomas, the group's executive director.
More than anything, Thomas said, she likes the message sent by an investment of this size in an neighborhood where such investments are uncommon.
"It's something new, it's something transformational," Thomas said. "It's a game changer for the Buffalo Road corridor. I think what that does is spur motivation."
More: Where does the $1 million-plus environmental cleanup at Erie's Quin-T property stand?
Thomas expects the project, which already has brought scientists to work in this gleaming new facility, will create both jobs, spinoff investments and a sense of pride.
More: Urban agriculture site takes shape at Savocchio Park. When will it be ready?
It promises to change how people see the place where they live, she said.
"They see the investment in resources, not just in the downtown, not just on the bayfront, but in their own community."
Contact Jim Martin at jmartin@
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Grow Erie greenhouse represents $5.6 million investment in community
