In San Antonio, indoor agricultural company Soli Organic Inc. recently announced the opening of its newest “indoor vertical farm.” Built at the site of the former Brooks Air Force Base, the facility measures roughly 140,000 sq ft and packs in six vertical layers of growing capacity across 100,000 sq ft of production space, along with 40,000 sq ft for processing and packing. Soli says it uses a “soil-based growing system” and robotic automation to produce a variety of salad greens and organic herbs while using 90% less water than traditional farming.

Leading construction was San Antonio-based Joeris General Contractors. Delivering the project was akin to constructing “a box in a box,” says Nick Beuke, vice president of Joeris’ industrial division. Adding to the challenge was that “each separate grow room has different environmental requirements,” Beuke says. “So you’re trying to have those rooms ready in a timely manner and in a certain condition” for each crop that will be grown. Controls for lighting had to be exactingly precise because the farm “controls down to the actual spectrum of light that [each] plant grows best under.”

Photo courtesy Joeris General Contractors

Beuke says the Joeris team realized early that coordination would be key. “The biggest challenge was just coordinating all the various different things that needed to be placed in different parts of the building and coordinating their timely delivery,” he says. “We had a ton of coordination meetings.”

“In today’s economy, consumers want value, and that’s what our new San Antonio facility is designed to deliver,” says Matt Ryan, Soli Organic’s chief executive officer. “This high-tech farm will offer retailers and consumers fresh, organic produce grown here in Texas and is already delivering our best yields yet.”