To the complex problems of the City of Duquesne and the Mon Valley, entrepreneur Glenn Ford offers a solution that is both down-to-earth and very fishy.
Mr. Ford, of Minneapolis, is the founder of InCity Farms, and on Friday he revealed plans for a 180,000-square-foot aquaponics facility on 25 riverfront acres in Duquesne. Backed by the social impact investors Hollymead Capital, the nonprofit Food 21 and an opportunity zone fund, with Peoples Natural Gas as its chief cheerleader, freshly sprouted InCity Farms is in the process of finding a headquarters in Pittsburgh. Its planned $30 million Duquesne facility is expected to employ 130 — starting salaries around $35,000 — potentially expanding to 275.
“We will try to hire as many of these people as we can from Duquesne and the surrounding area,” Mr. Ford said. “We’re going to take 25 [acres] and we’re going to turn that into, if you will, a little metropolis of food businesses there.”
“I think it could be the starting point for the revitalization of the city of Duquesne and the [Mon Valley] region,” Duquesne Mayor Nickole Nesby said.