(Bring up bubbles)
Deep inside the basement of a former meatpacking plant on the edge of Chicago’s stockyards, rows of giant plastic barrels are neatly lined up. Inside, hundreds of dark grey and pink speckled fish are quietly swimming around.
John Edel says this is just the beginning of his urban farm.
Edel: We breed all of our own tilapia.
Edel calls this building “The Plant” – and wants it to be completely energy self-sufficient.
That’s a tall order for such a big space - the building’s bigger than most department stores. Inside is Edel’s urban farm as well as other tenants, including a brewery.
The building was the home of Peer Foods, which had smoked and roasted meat here since 1925. It sat empty for years before Edel bought it in 2010.
Today, he’s escorting around team of engineers.
Edel: Probably we hack everything out that is there, and we replace it with new stuff is my guess..
That ringing you hear is because the windows, which Edel just replaced, haven’t yet been properly sealed.
Edel: I can’t wait until these are caulked!
He bought the building for $500,000 to create a vertical farm.
Edel: Originally I was just thinking of aquaponics systems combined with light manufacturing, shared office space.
Edel was a video game designer – but he paid his way through school by doing construction work. Then he got into converting buildings. His first project was a former paint warehouse in Bridgeport, on the South Side. It’s now the Chicago Sustainable Manufacturing Center - with 16 businesses tenants.
Edel: But finding this building, with all of its floor drains and vapor right light fixtures and stainless steel, this was a new opportunity. So the plan behind the Plant began to change.
That’s one of the biggest lessons Edel would impart to anybody who’s interested in converting one of the thousands of empty buildings across our region – be flexible.
When he tried to buy his first building, he says the banks laughed him out the door. His realtor arranged an owner-financed sale – basically, Edel paid a mortgage to the building’s owner – until he owned it outright.
His family helped buy this building – so he pays them a mortgage. And Edel uses profits from the first building to help finance operations at the Plant.
While the building is being converted, Edel rents out three acres out back for tractor trailer parking. Some parts of the building are rented as storage space.
He reuses whatever he can, and does as much of the construction work himself – along with an army of volunteers, who today are helping him salvage floor tiles.
Volunteer: We’re doing to try to clean them all up, and reuse them.
Edel’s also had help from local and state governments. He’s taken advantage of some City of Chicago Small Business Improvement programs to help finance things like replacing all those windows.
Having a green project also helped secure state grants. He got $1.5 million from Illinois to buy an anaerobic digester that will convert plant and waste matter into energy.
Edel: This model isn’t spending huge amount of money as fast as you can to get the building done as fast as you can. It’s about slow money and about doing what you can with what you have.
(fade down ambi)
Lee: It’s a magic moment when a person like that comes along
Lee Bey is executive director of the Chicago Central Area Committee. The downtown civic group focuses on urban planning.
Bey: Even if its not a blight, the absence of something commercial means an absence of jobs, the absence of a dollar turning around in the community.
Bey says the key with someone like Edel is using him as a blueprint.
Bey: I think the real magic is pull him aside - the city, an alderman - and pull him aside and say, what can we do there?
Bey says every city has people like Edel. The key is figure out how their work can be replicated – that’s when seeing fewer and fewer empty buildings.
For Changing Gears, I’m Niala Boodhoo.
Changing Gears is a public media collaboration between WBEZ, Michigan Radio and Ideastream in Cleveland.
Support for Changing Gears comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
