Nearly six years ago, when Gina Raimondo was still governor and David Dooley was the University of Rhode Island president, voters approved a green bond that included providing URI with $4 million to build greenhouses on prime agricultural land.
Michael Hallock, co-founder and CEO of the RI Mushroom Co., has partnered with Cambridge, Mass.-based American Ag Energy to build a greenhouse complex next to Peckham Farm in the village of West Kingston. They signed a lease Feb. 4, 2020, with URI for use of the property on state land south of Route 138. ecoRI News reached out to Hallock to talk about the project but our request didn't receive a response.
URI, in conjunction with Rhode Island Agricultural Technologies LLC — a Delaware-based limited liability company consisting of the RI Mushroom Co. and American Ag Energy — will create the Rhode Island Agricultural Innovation & Entrepreneurship Campus, according to a Dec. 18, 2018, URI press release announcing the project.
Rhode Island Agricultural Technologies "shall be vested with legal title to certain property formerly owned by or under the control or in the custody of the Council on Postsecondary Education for the benefit of the University of Rhode Island," according to the 109-page lease.
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