PROVIDENCE – A company that grows and distributes pesticide-free vegetables and herbs from rooftop urban greenhouses plans to build a 95,000-square-foot facility in Providence, on the site of a former manufacturing plant.
Gotham Greens Holdings, LLC plans its new construction at 586 Atwells Ave., a 5-acre cleared site that used to be the General Electric Base Works manufacturing plant.
The R.I. Commerce Corp. on Monday authorized up to $1.3 million in Rebuild Rhode Island tax credits for the greenhouse construction and up to $935,000 in job creation tax credits through the Qualified Jobs Incentive Act.
Gotham Greens plans to hire up to 68 people for full-time positions, according to the Commerce RI documents. The job creation tax credit would be payable over 10 years, or up to $7,500 annually for each job that exceeds the state median salary.
The Rebuild incentives would become available on completion of the facility, while the job creation incentives are payable once the jobs have been created for a year, according to Commerce RI.
Gotham Greens, founded in 2009 and based in New York, operates four greenhouse facilities in New York and Chicago and is actively seeking new locations for expansion of its urban agriculture operations.
The first greenhouse, built in 2011 in Brooklyn, is a rooftop facility that covers 15,000 square feet and produces annually more than 100,000 pounds of leafy greens, according to the company. It sits atop the Greenpoint Wood Exchange building, which once had a bowling alley.
Altogether, Gotham Greens has 170,000 square feet of urban, rooftop greenhouses that feature modern technology, integrated pest control and beneficial insects to prey on pests according to the company website.
Mary MacDonald is a staff writer for the PBN. Contact her at macdonald@pbn.com.
