SitemapUrban areas in the Midwest have more empty space than they know what to do with.
So when Chicago-based Fresh Coast Capital approached a handful of struggling municipalities with a unique proposal — to seed vacant lots with hybrid poplar trees — the nascent investment and real estate development firm was met with receptive curiosity.
Founded in 2014, Fresh Coast Capital seeks to redevelop land in an environmentally friendly fashion. Their initial gambit seeks to bring commercial tree farms to vacant land in six Rust Belt cities. The firm invested a total of $1 million in Youngstown, Ohio; Battle Creek and Flint, Michigan; St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri; and Elkhart, Indiana.
Almost all of these cities have lost close to half of their peak populations. Fresh Coast's investment will seed 60 acres of farms with some 27,000 trees, which will then be harvested for sale.
A win-win
In Flint, Fresh Coast is working with the Genesee County Land Bank, which controls around 12,000 parcels of land. The deindustrialization-ravaged city's master plan calls for vast tracts of land to be converted to "green innovation" and "open spaces." Tree farms fit the bill.
Although the land bank usually only deals in five-year leases, last year they gave a 15-year lease to Fresh Coast Capital for an eight-acre parcel. The firm needs at least that long to grow and harvest the hybrid poplars, and the city felt that their proposal was strong enough to grant an exemption from the norm.
In Ohio, the investment firm is working with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, a nonprofit group that engages in restoring vacant lots, neighborhood planning, urban farming, providing home ownership counseling, and even offering community lending. The dynamic local group also assists the parks department with its planning needs, which is how the community development corporation got in touch with Fresh Coast Capital.
The firm will be planting on three underutilized city park spaces, situated in hollowed-out neighborhoods that Youngstown cannot afford to maintain.
"They did not come here asking for money," says Ian Beniston, AICP, executive director of the YNDC. "They basically said just give us access to the land and we'll put together the capital ourselves and maintain the property at no cost to the city. They definitely understand the challenges of vacant land, and they are trying to develop a model that generates a return on investment, creates some small level of employment, and just offers a purpose for the land." Beniston says that if all goes well they would like to see Fresh Coast expand their efforts in Youngstown.
In Flint that is already happening: The investment firm has taken an interest in a fresh-cut flower farm. A local operation, Floradora's Flowers actually runs the business, but Fresh Coast holds and insures the property, which it purchased outright from the previous owner.
"There are so many vacant lots in the city," says Heidi Phaneuf, community resource planner with the land bank. "Fresh Coast is bringing ideas and capital and resources to help find ways to reuse that vacant land in interesting and unique ways. It's pretty exciting to see. The trees are already growing."
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