SAN ANTONIO – A multimillion-dollar indoor organic farm will soon sprout up in southeast San Antonio.
Soli Organic Inc. is building a $50 million indoor farm and packing facility in the Brooks community near Interstate 37 and Loop 410.
“Soli Organic has launched an initiative throughout the country where they’re really investing and building their plants in designated opportunity zones,” said Leo Gomez, president and CEO at Brooks.
The opportunity zone designation at Brooks connects major employers to areas with lower incomes and helps create jobs in the area.
“The more employers we bring in that not only have the higher-end jobs and the higher-paying jobs but jobs that pay a salary that takes them out of poverty and gives them a good health care package,” said Gomez.
The farm is expected to bring about 100 jobs to the area and produce about 5 million pounds of produce every year that will be shipped to regional and national grocers.
“A lot of people from the skilled trades, skill technicians and such, will be filling those kinds of positions,” said Gomez.
According to a news release, the Brooks farm will be built on 100,000 square feet and include six vertical layers of production capacity and an additional 40,000 square feet of processing.
The farm will be Texas’s first high-tech, automated indoor farm and packing facility.
“I’m excited that Soli Organics saw the assets that make up Brooks, what we’re making and building a true community,” said Gomez. “That we are in the process of developing not only for its own immediate needs but for the surrounding region.”