Houston, TX – On December 1, 2015, the City of Pasadena unanimously voted in favor of a Chapter 380 Economic Development Agreement with Indoor Harvest for the purpose of establishing an open source, vertical farm and education campus on the City’s north side. As a result of this vote, the City is providing access to properties and tax incentives for this project (called Community Located Agricultural Research Area or CLARA).
Indoor Harvest Corp is a full service, state of the art design-build engineering firm for the indoor and vertical farming industry. Its brand name Indoor Harvest® offers production platforms and complete custom designed build-outs for both greenhouse and building integrated agriculture grows, tailored to the specific needs of virtually any cultivar.
Chad Sykes, Chief Executive Officer of Indoor Harvest, stated, “The one common theme that seems to keep emerging in the vertical farming space is that the lack of publicly available data, experienced people and the high costs of R&D are hampering the growth of commercial vertical farming. The cost of R&D can be quite high and I believe CLARA can solve some of these barriers by providing usable data and experienced people for the industry. Vertical farming is still in its infancy, but with growing concerns over resources, food quality, global population and climate change, I believe demand is about to outstrip resources in the space. It will also help address a serious health concern, which is the lack of local healthy food in this part of the City and the long-term impacts of this, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and several types of cancer.”
CLARA is central to the work of a new, nationally-recognized City partnership in Pasadena involving the Harris County BUILD Health Partnership, an initiative of Harris County Public Health & Environmental Services; the Houston Food Bank and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to eliminate the conditions that cause limited or uncertain access to adequate food in the area, known as food insecurity. It is one of seven projects awarded $250,000 by the national BUILD Health Challenge in recognition of its efforts to improve community health. CLARA will serve as the production base of the initiative’s new food system.
“We are proud to partner with such leading health and wellness organizations in Harris County to provide the basis for a new community-supported food system,” says Mr. Sykes, “Together, and with the City’s leaders and residents, we will continue to improve community health.”
Indoor Harvest has invested more than $2M in developing its business plan and fixture-based approach to vertical farming. This approach allows considerable flexibility in the design and construction of vertical farms while lowering costs regardless of scale. Indoor Harvest intends to use the CLARA facility as a demonstration farm and showroom for its products and services. Operations will be carried out and partially funded through partnerships. All production and environmental data generated from operations will be made publicly available through a searchable database and the crops grown will be integrated into the City’s new healthy food system.
In addition, CLARA aims to help train the next generation of farmers and provide a pipeline of skilled labor to the vertical farming industry. The City has engaged the Pasadena Independent School District’s Kirk Lewis Career & Technical High School and the San Jacinto College Continuing and Professional Development division to develop this curriculum.
“We look forward to the collaboration and the opportunities that will be provided for our students to learn as well as to share in the building of a unique community project,” stated Dr. Sarah Janes, vice president of Continuing and Professional Development at San Jacinto College.
In order to fund the construction of CLARA, Indoor Harvest has commenced a Rule 506(c) crowdfunding effort to sell up to 5,000,000 shares of Series A Convertible Preferred Stock at a price of $1.00 per share for maximum gross proceeds of $5,000,000. In full compliance with SEC rules, only accredited investors may invest in this offering and the securities will be offered through WealthForge, LLC. To learn more about this offering please contact the team at invest@indoorharvest.com or follow them on social media.
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Contact Information:
Indoor Harvest Corp
CEO, Mr. Chad Sykes
713-410-7903
ccsykes@indoorharvest.com
BUILD Health Partnership
Jennifer Hadayia
775-544-3898
jhadayia@hcphes.org
