Photograph by David Torrence
“There are really six buildings, all joined together,” developer Craig Heller says, his grand, sweeping gesture taking in a lot of grimy brick and broken concrete at First Street and Cass Avenue. A four-story structure, built in 1871, has been left to rats and pigeons since the 1950s; it will be gutted and turned into a housing complex. The weedy patches will be an orchard and a courtyard with a rain-capture system. The two-story building that’s halfway presentable, used until recently as office space for Hammond Sheet Metal Company, will remain office space, to incubate sustainable green businesses. And the vast loading dock will accommodate truckloads of local produce, either coming in to be processed in a commercial kitchen or leaving to be distributed to area restaurants and residents.
Heller walks into one of the shadowy, stifling-hot, cavernous warehouses, past the old wooden flywheel and giant drill press. In nine months or so, this will be FarmWorks, a gleaming, futuristic world of fish tanks, suspended gardens, and red-wiggler vermiculture.
“We’ve done buildings a lot worse,” he grins, wiping the light film of sweat and dust that’s already settled on his forehead. His LoftWorks company was the first to dare lofts in downtown St. Louis, back in ’98: “People said, ‘You’re nuts, no way, who wants to live downtown?’” LoftWorks has since put $200 million into historic renovation into the city. And along the way, Heller somehow ended up owning this 4-acre parcel just north of downtown.
“The fish tanks—probably tilapia—will be the bottom layer,” he says, pulling out a diagram of a vertical growing system and pointing. “We’ll pump water up through rocks that have beneficial bacteria, and that will break the ammonia of the fish waste into nitrogen,” making it possible to water and fertilize veggies on the top layer. It’s a closed loop, ultraefficient, with no need for herbicides, pesticides, or additional fertilizers. Add the red wiggler worms doing the composting next door, and you’ve got aquaponics, hydroponics, and vermiculture, futuristic systems to create old-fashioned food (sustainable, healthy, and locally grown).
The human side of the equation’s not quite as neat, but it, too, is based on an efficient, everybody-wins equation. Men who’ve been homeless or in prison will live and work at the center, with counseling and support at hand. They’ll learn about urban agriculture as they polish job skills and acquire the work and rental history they need to be independent. Every inch of the project will be collaborative, involving St. Patrick Center for housing, Gateway Greening, local farmers, green businesses, historic tax credits, area residents, area restaurants, students, researchers…and the film crew already planning a documentary about Heller’s model for the future.
