In the once-thriving historic steel town of Braddock, where the median income for households is $22,609 and population has declined from 18,000 after World War II to just 2,000 today, new innovations in sustainable, indoor urban farming are taking root. 

Situated in a vacant lot in the shadow of the still-operational Edgar Thomson Steel Works, which at the height of the U.S. steel boom employed 20,000 people, a 60,000 square-foot, highly efficient, commercial-scale indoor vertical farm that applies machine learning and robotics to farming is being built, with plans for replication and expansion across the United States.

Fifth Season, which incubated its first urban farm at Carnegie Mellon University, will use proprietary robotics technology at its Braddock location to grow fresh produce at a fraction of the cost of traditional agriculture for Pittsburgh-area grocery stores and restaurants.

The indoor space will provide the ideal growing environment to deliver produce in any season and is projected to produce over 500,000 pounds of lettuce, spinach, kale, arugula and herbs during the first full year of operation.

The facility, which plans to open in early 2020, will be partially solar-powered and will require 95 percent less water compared to traditional growing operations due to a proprietary water filtration and recycling system.

Austin Webb, Fifth Season's co-founder and CEO, said the company's Braddock farm will set a new vertical agriculture standard for efficient, safe and sustainable production of pesticide-free leafy greens and herbs in urban communities.

"We have developed fully integrated, proprietary technology to completely control the hydroponic growing process and optimize key factors such as energy, labor usage and crop output," Webb added. "The result is a vertical farm design that has over twice the efficiency and grow capacity of traditional vertical farms. Our unprecedented low costs set a new standard for the future of the industry."

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A project managed by the Green Building Alliance with funding by the Richard King Mellon Foundation, its purpose is to share Pittsburgh’s ongoing transformation and green innovation news with reporters and editors.

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[Posted: October 17, 2019]

10/21/2019