Vertical farm planned at old Target store site in Calumet City

A former Super Target store in Calumet City will be turned into a vertical farm supplying produce to groceries and restaurants within 100 miles, the project’s leader and local officials said Wednesday.

The $40 million development is a venture of Wilder Fields, which was founded on the city’s South Side and operated on a small scale under the name Backyard Fresh Farms. The company’s founder and CEO, Jake Counne, said he expects to create 80 full-time jobs in the facility at 1717 E. West Road, near the River Oaks shopping center.

Blending hydroponics — growing crops in a mineral-enriched solution rather than in soil — with artificial intelligence, Counne said his company can increase yields and reduce costs and water usage compared with other forms of agriculture. He said the company has applied for several patents on its processes.

At capacity, the 135,000-square-foot building will produce 25 million pounds of greens annually, he said. Officials said the Super Target store closed in 2015.

“We will blow people’s minds with varieties and flavors that they have never tasted, because those greens would have never survived the journey to their plate,” Counne said at an announcement of the project with the mayor of Calumet City, Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush.

A first phase of the project is expected by early 2021. The phase will include an initial group of eight-level “cleanrooms” designed for different types of produce. Plans call for the building to have 24 cleanrooms by the end of the final phase in early 2023, along with a retail store and an education center.

Counne said his company is discussing incentives with Calumet City officials and expects to buy the property from Target.

His company’s approach differs from that of Gotham Greens, which operates an industrial-scale greenhouse in Pullman. Counne said his facility relies on indoor lights and conditions it can precisely control, even to slow plant growth when there is little demand.