The “Food District” is an ambitious project that aims to be a local leader in food production, food technology, workforce development and distribution systems. Or at least that was the way it was originally announced in 2013, and after a virtual groundbreaking event last summer, we haven’t really heard a whole lot about the project. That has lead some of the neighbors who live near the planned development site at North Fourth Street and East Fifth Avenue in Weinland Park to speculate that the Food District is no longer happening.
Fortunately, that rumor has been quickly put to bed.
“We needed to go quiet for a couple of months, but It’s still a go,” said Greg Rutland, Project Manager at the Community Economic Development Corporation of Ohio (CEDCO), which is overseeing The Food District initiative.
Rutland said that the cause for going quiet had to do with the possible relocation of The Food District to Milo-Grogan, as a part of the Urban Food-and-Beverage Campus that was pitched during the Stone Brewing relocation campaign. After that deal fell through, The Food District was left without a home.
“The Timken site was no longer available, and the old 3M site is still considered a brownfield, so our food production facilities may not be able to go there,” Rutland explained. “So the CEDCO board decided to look at our options again for space requirements and strengthen our advisory team to include real estate and food manufacturing and project financiers since we have to find a different site.”
The board began searching within a one-mile radius of the original site, and have narrowed their options down to two potential new homes for the project. Rutland did not want to disclose where those locations might be at this point in time.
“We’re trying to keep that on the backburner until late summer or early fall,” he said. “We’re still drawing up support for that. We’ve had some good meetings, and we’ve had some people add funding to the project. We feel good about it.”
While the timeline may be delayed, the jobs-and-education-centric mission of The Food District remains unchanged. Rutland added that with new board members comes new expertise, and one of the technology updates that they’re currently studying includes high pressure pasteurization systems, which could help local food production businesses extend the shelf life of products and cut food waste costs.
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For more information, visit www.thefooddistrict.org.