Urban Farm Coming to Downtown Mobile
Urban Farm Coming to Downtown Mobile
Posted: Aug 13, 2017 10:50 PM CDT - By Lee Peck, FOX10 News Reporter
Shipshape Urban Farms hopes to break ground in near future and open in downtown Mobile later this year. Source: Dale Speetjens
Downtown Mobile Urban Farm
610 St. Michael Street may not look like much now, but the vacant lot will soon be home to something downtown Mobile has never seen.
Dale and Angela Speetjens are the masterminds behind Shipshape Urban Farms. Angela has a background in horticulture and will manage the farm. They'll use eight repurposed shipping containers, they'll grow the equivalent of a 20-acre farm on a 1/4 of an acre.
They'll use a process called hydroponics -- an efficient method of growing plants without soil in nutrient rich water. It maximizes the process from start to finish and takes the environmental pressures out of the equation.
"So normal farming you lose a lot of your crops to pests... here we are gong to be able to control the light, control the nutrients, we're going to be able to control the climate," explained Speetjens.
They expect to hire around four employees. Each container will require 8 to 15 hours a week of work.
Giving whole new meaning to homegrown, expect all your leafy green favorites 365 days a year.
"All year long -- we will produce every single week... We harvest close to 10,000 plants. Lettuce, herbs, salad mixes," said Speetjens.
They plan to serve local restaurants, farmers markets, and businesses in both Mobile and Baldwin counties. Customers will also be able to purchase produce through Shipshape's CSA program. CSA stands for "community Supported Agriculture. For an annual fee, CSA members will get a weekly basket of produce from the farm.
As a part of the mayor's innovation team, Speetjens knew there was a place for the urban garden in downtown Mobile.
"During that process, I worked on blight and vacant lots and I had a good idea where a lot of the vacant lots were in town," said Speetjens.
Speetjens expects their operation to spur other activity in the area.
"We are just one piece of the pie. If you look next to us... I can name 10 projects that are in some level of in the works," said Speetjens.
According to Speetjens, next door there's even talk of a restaurant and a brewery down the way.
"Most cities that are thought of as being walkable it's not a single street, it's a couple of streets and it won't take much for us to make connections between the St. Louis corridor and the Dauphin Street corridor -- a few in fills here and there - and we could really start seeing a boom. Doesn't take that much to make a big thing happen," said Speetjens.
Speetjens says they have a meeting with City of Mobile August 23 and will have a better idea of when they will break ground. He hopes they will be open by Christmas. For more information click here.