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 | Sid Wainer & Son Co., gourmet foods distributor, plans to
construct three greenhouses on the site of the former Alden
Corrugated Box factory, which it is buying from the city. |  A prominent local food distributor plans to grow vegetables in greenhouses on the site of a former box factory in New Bedford’s North End.
Sid Wainer & Son Co., the gourmet foods distributor headquartered on Purchase Street, has announced plans to build three 30-by 100-foot greenhouses on the site of the former Alden Corrugated Box factory, which it is buying from the city.
They company would harvest salad greens and take them to market in a day, said Wainer & Son Co. President Henry B. Wainer. Mr. Wainer said the greenhouses would be the only commercial greenhouses in an inner city that he knows of.
The greenhouses also could attract more business to the downtrodden North End industrial district, Mr. Wainer said.
“The mayor said he had a vision of changing this area to a food-zoned area, and this is one step towards fulfilling that vision,” he said.
Mr. Wainer said the company is pricing greenhouses now and plans to have them up and running in the spring. The company is in the final stages of buying the property from the New Bedford Redevelopment Authority. The sale is expected to be completed in early 2004, said Robert J. Luongo, executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council.
City official’s are pleases with Wainer’s plan to erect greenhouses on part of the property.
“That would be great,” Mr. Luongo said. “It’s an interesting use of an industrial site and it will offer a nice transition from an industrial zone to the nearby residential housing.”
The Alden Corrugated site had been seized the city after the former owner failed to pay back taxes. Alden Corrugated closed its doors in 1991, and there was a fire in the building four years later, forcing its demolition. Wainer & Son is paying an estimated $250,000 for 2.8 acres of the site.
Professor’s Gym on Church Street bought a small portion of the site last year, and the city also kept small a section.
The plan to erect greenhouses in the middle of New Bedford is part of a larger business strategy by Wainer & Son to grow locally some of the exotic and high-end produce that it currently imports from around the world.
As part of the strategy, the company last year bought the former Bettencourt Farm on barney’s Joy Road in South Dartmouth and established an experimental farm.
This summer, the company experimented with growing some of the non-native vegetables it sells to caterers, gourmet shops, hotels, and restaurants across the United States.
The Alden parcel is currently being cleaned up by the city in preparation for its sale to Wainer & Son.
As part of that clean up, contaminated dirt is being removed and the site refilled with clean soil. Mr. Wainer said environmental hazards that may exist on the site of the former factory will not affect agricultural production there, because the vegetables will be grown in clean soil brought into the greenhouses.
"We’re putting lettuce in dirt and watching it grow,” Mr. Wainer said. The plan to build greenhouses on the Alden property also may be partly an attempt to appease it neighbors.
Last year, the company made a proposal to build the warehouse of up to 20,000 square feet and office building on the site, but residents of the Tabor Mills complex, an elderly, living facility that abuts the site, expressed concerns about the company’s expansion plans - particularly about noise that would be generated by trucks.
Wainer & Son Co. still plans to build the cold storage and dry goods warehouse on the property, Mr. Wainer said, but he declined to say when.
Located at 2301 Purchase Street in a former blanket factory, Sid Wainer & Son supplies restaurants, hotels, caterers, senior citizen homes and schools with such gourmet foods as French foie gras, Japanese Wasabi, Russian caviar, Dutch graffiti eggplant and rare Italian goat cheese.
It also sells specialty gift baskets packed with cheeses, fruit and imported food items.
The 89-year-old company, which currently employs about 400 people, is growing rapidly. The company has doubled in size in the past five years, and Mr. Wainer said the company could add as many as 100 more employees in the next five years.
Last year, the company purchased the Sturtevant & Hook lumberyard at 2343 Purchase Street. Combined with its new Alden Corrugated Box factory site, and other North End properties, the company now owns about 22 acres in New Bedford in addition to its Dartmouth farm. |
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