Expansion Update: Introducing Vertical Harvest Philadelphia
We Are Thrilled To Announce The Third Farm
Location For Vertical Harvest — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania!
The farm, scheduled to break ground later this year, will be part of the new Tioga District™ development — a federally qualified opportunity zone located in a food, health, and wellness desert in the upper north area of the city.
Stationed adjacent to the Temple University Health Sciences Campus and Temple University Hospital, the 70,000 square foot Vertical Harvest greenhouse will be part of the development’s Preventative Health Hub™ a 168,000-sq-foot, state-of-the-art national model for healthcare, health, and wellness with social impact.
Along with the farm already under development in Westbrook Maine, this Philadelphia greenhouse is part of our initiative to co-locate vertical farms with affordable housing in underserved communities across the nation. Specifically, this Philadelphia project will include an accompanying 50 affordable housing units for farmworkers.
Exciting New Development Partners
Our partners in the project are Greg Day, principal and manager of TDB, LLC based in Westbrook, Maine. and TPP Capital Holdings (TPP), a Philadelphia-based, Black-led social impact private equity fund manager and healthcare real estate development firm. TPP is on a mission to change the face of Black health by investing in and transforming blighted and underserved black neighborhoods into integrated and scalable wellness-centric districts over the next 10 years. TPP’s principals Anthony B. Miles and Clinton Bush are co-architects of the Tioga District Preventative Health Hub™.
Within a five-city square block area, the full Tioga District™ development will create 1,407 residential units for rent or sale, the preventative health hub, 172,870 square feet of commercial/office space, 107,000 square feet of retail space, and 92,392 square feet of pedestrian, streetscape and stormwater improvements.
The goal is to uplift Philadelphia’s distressed neighborhood of Tioga with an 85.5% black population, 45% high blood pressure rate, 43.3% obesity rate, 19.3% diabetes rate, 42% of people in poverty, $17,052 median household income, and an unemployment rate of 18%.
We are very proud that Vertical Harvest will be part of this incredible and forward-thinking development, says Nona Yehia, Vertical Harvest CEO. “Partnering with the visionaries at TPP, we hope to help address systemic inequities and facilitate change in underserved neighborhoods. Vertical Harvest’s reimagined food systems and the jobs they create can help these communities be more nourishing, resilient, and sustainable.”
FEBRUARY 15, 2021/BY DAWN HAGIN