Designing and Building the Greenhouse:
Rough Brothers, Inc., a Cincinnati-based company, designed and built the greenhouse facility at Green City Growers Cooperative. This wasn't new territory for Rough Brothers; they've been engineering, designing, manufacturing and installing greenhouses and related systems for over 75 years. The company is also well-versed in commercial hydroponic greenhouses.
The structure itself is a standard 20 ft. poly arch greenhouse. John Hoogeboom, a long-time greenhouse designer and hydroponic expert for Rough Brothers, led the design of the elevated pond and floating raft hydroponic system.
I spoke with Tom Vezdos, commercial manager for Rough Brothers, about the unique challenges faced when designing and building a greenhouse structure in an urban core like Cleveland’s Central neighborhood. Tom explained that the planning and permitting phase is much lengthier in a city because of all the red tape you have to work through, but once the construction crew is on-site, it’s smooth sailing as usual.
Rough Brothers spent about five months constructing the greenhouse in 2012 and another six to eight weeks installing the internal growing systems. The biggest bump in the road came from Hurricane Sandy, whose wind and rain slowed their progress in late fall.
Now up and running, Green City Growers Cooperative is making it their mission to employ local workers and sustainably grow and market high quality, year-round fresh produce for the Cleveland community.
For more details: http://www.ballpublishing.com/insidegrower/CurrentNewsletter.aspx
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