Baltimore Food Hub: land deal for 3.5-acre food operations campus approved by city

Scheduled for complete by fall 2014 is the Baltimore Food Hub, a multi-building, multi-purpose food operations campus, complete with an incubator for food-related businesses, an urban farming operation managed by Big City Farms and a for-rent commercial kitchen, among other amenities.
On Thursday, the Baltimore Development Corporation “approved a land deal with the Baltimore Food Hub initiative that will bring an extensive urban farming operation to East Baltimore,” according to the Baltimore Business Journal.
As Technically Baltimore reported in February, the campus will inhabit the former Eastern Pumping Station just north of the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus in East Baltimore. Woodberry Kitchen‘s Spike Gjerde and Bill Struever, founder of the American Communities Trust, are two of the people behind the project — which is, itself, inspired by a similar, 13,000-square-foot incubator in Philadelphia.
View proposed construction plans for the Baltimore Food Hub here.
Under the land deal, according to the BBJ, the Baltimore Food Hub “would pay the city $500,000 up front and $400,000 in a takeback mortgage for land and city-owned buildings at 1801 E. Oliver St.”
BmoreMedia has additional details about the Baltimore Food Hub:

• The proposed price tag is $16 million, although we first reported $10 million in February.
• How to fund construction is still a question. In February, we reported that grants, equity, historic tax credits and new markets tax credits will be used to come up with the funding, according to Food Hub project manager Greg Heller.
• The site will be 3.5 acres.
• Project directors expect the Baltimore Food Hub to create 100 new jobs over its first three years.