Farm Fresh RI’s Food Hub Set to Open

A Much-Anticipated New Headquarters in the Valley Neighborhood of Providence is a Game Changer for Local Foods

“Vision without action is a daydream,” states a Japanese proverb. Many, if not most, nonprofit organizations have a vision for what “could” be with sufficient funding, strategic planning and forward-thinking leadership. When Farm Fresh Rhode Island was established in 2004 with a mission to grow a local food system that values the environment, health and quality of life of the farmers and eaters in our region, organizers could only dream of what their tomorrow would look like.

Today, the dreams of all of Farm Fresh’s staff, stakeholders and community supporters are on the brink of reality.

“As an organization, [we] spent a year in just planning and looking ahead. Farm Fresh is 16 years old, so at about the 12-year point, we said, ‘Where do we want to be 10 years from now? What do we want to look like?’ and ‘What space do we need?’” says Sheri Griffin, Farm Fresh’s co-executive director (with co-executive director Jesse Rye).

In 2017, the organization purchased a three-acre former mill site perched on the banks of Providence’s Woonasquatucket River for $795,000 to serve as the future site of the Farm Fresh RI food hub. A massive, dilapidated concrete slab surrounded by a crumbling parking lot, the Valley neighborhood brownfield was in need of a new beginning—and environmental remediation was just the start. Farm Fresh worked diligently to seek funding from numerous public and private entities to bring the food hub project to fruition.

This fall, the 60,000-square-foot facility will open its doors. The hub will be home to a year-round farmers market, the organization’s Market Mobile local food delivery service, a center for light processing of locally grown produce, space for expanded programming, community education and food and nutrition programs, and the organization’s administrative offices.

“When you add that all up, that’s about 30,000 square feet, and the remaining 30,000 square feet has been earmarked for food- and farm-related businesses,” says Lucie Searle, Farm Fresh’s real estate and community developer.

“I think everybody who we have talked to or who has been through this site has been understanding of the multifaceted programming,” says Griffin. “So they can be both a tenant and a vendor, and they can sell into another business that’s there—it’s really creating a hub for the food economy here in Rhode Island.”

Griffin concedes this is “a very scary time” to be a food business (“or any business, for that matter,” she adds), but is thrilled that people are getting excited about the possibilities and appreciate how carefully the organization has planned this building as a custom-built facility to serve multiple uses, moreover now in consideration of all the new health guidelines.

One of the new tenants, New Harvest Coffee Roasters, will be bringing its roasting operations to the hub along with retail sales and a coffee bar. The intent is for the coffee bar to be open in time for the start of the Winter Market on November 7.

“It’s called purpose design,” says Searle. While most companies or organizations lease a space and work with what they have, as Farm Fresh has done throughout its existence, this purpose design building was custom built to serve the organization’s specific needs.

Eight large garage-door-style entry points for the market halls will allow indoor and outdoor shopping, there’s an enviable 400-squarefeet of freezers (four times the current space) and three loading docks “so we can accommodate anything from a pickup truck to an 18- wheeler,” laughs Searle.

She says one of the decisions Farm Fresh made that makes them most proud is that they’re devoting a half-acre of the three-acre site to public open space. The frontage along Kinsley Avenue, she adds, will be aesthetically pleasing with ample vegetation. More importantly, say both women, Farm Fresh is committed to being good stewards of the land.

“We are managing 100% of our storm water on site. That means there is no runoff into the roads or into the Woonasquatucket River ... All water that comes onto that site is captured and channeled to filtration chambers and to bio-retention gardens so that any impurities have a chance to get filtered out,” says Griffin. A solar panel array on the roof is expected to meet about half of the building’s electricity needs, and, as a climate resilience measure, builders raised the grade of the site by two feet.

Griffin and Searle point to the revitalization on the northern side of the Woonasquatucket River, citing The Foundry, the American Locomotive Company office park (ALCO), US Rubber Lofts and the WaterFire Arts Center as model projects that they hope will be emulated around the new food hub.

“When you have a site that is this large and you have an organization that attracts the number of people that Farm Fresh does, it can be very catalytic in terms of this sort of re-energizing activity,” says Griffin. “Our project is expected to kick-start a lot of that.”

For more information on the opening of the relocated winter farmers market (formerly in Pawtucket) and the new food hub, visit FarmFreshRI.org.