World’s Largest Rooftop Farm Plans Move And Expansion
January 31st, 2012

Via EcoLocalizer, a report that the world’s largest rooftop farm plans to move:

For those wanting to see what happens with a community garden located on the rooftop, go visit the Brooklyn Grange – which is not in really in Brooklyn, but in Queens. Now what is considered the world’s largest rooftop farm is expanding again. But first, some background.

According to the Grange website, the company in 2009 with the name, Brooklyn Grange, LLC because the founders – all of them residing in Brooklyn – thought they had a site in Brooklyn locked down. But in spring of 2010 the company relocated to its current location on Northern Blvd. in Queens.

At that point, however, we had already established an LLC under the name “Brooklyn Grange,” had begun using the name in public at our fundraisers and events in the winter and didn’t want to confuse the folks who had been following our progress and supporting our efforts. We’ve kept our name as Brooklyn Grange, but we are thrilled with our new home in LIC, Queens and have really enjoyed meeting the community there.

This one-acre (40,000 square foot) farm in Queens is made up of roughly 1.2 million lbs of soil and over 20,000 linear feet of green roofing material. That may hold a lot of weight, but Grange managers say that’s not a problem:

Our farm was designed and installed with the support of engineers and architects who assessed and approved the site. The building was constructed in 1919 and is built like a rock. The roof is made of a thick reinforced concrete slab, which is approved for loads far in excess of the 30 lbs. per square foot of materials that we have installed.

Now that winter is here, another move is planned, writes Inhabitat, this time to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Now that the Grange is back in Brooklyn, this summer should provide the Big Apple’s urban farming enthusiasts with a harvest of good green news and plenty to eat


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About This Blog And Its Author
As potential uses for building and parking lot roofspace continue to grow, unique opportunities to understand and profit from this trend will emerge. Roof Options is committed to tracking the evolving uses of roof estate – spanning solar power, rainwater harvesting, wind power, gardens & farms, “cooling” sites, advertising, apiculture, and telecom transmission platforms – to help unlock the nascent, complex, and expanding roofspace asset class.

Educated at Yale University (Bachelor of Arts - History) and Harvard (Master in Public Policy - International Development), Monty Simus has held a lifelong interest in environmental and conservation issues, primarily as they relate to freshwater scarcity, renewable energy, and national park policy. Working from a water-scarce base in Las Vegas with his wife and son, he is the founder of Water Politics, an organization dedicated to the identification and analysis of geopolitical water issues arising from the world’s growing and vast water deficits, and is also a co-founder of SmartMarkets, an eco-preneurial venture that applies web 2.0 technology and online social networking innovations to motivate energy & water conservation. He previously worked for an independent power producer in Central Asia; co-authored an article appearing in the Summer 2010 issue of the Tulane Environmental Law Journal, titled: “The Water Ethic: The Inexorable Birth Of A Certain Alienable Right”; and authored an article appearing in the inaugural issue of Johns Hopkins University's Global Water Magazine in July 2010 titled: “H2Own: The Water Ethic and an Equitable Market for the Exchange of Individual Water Efficiency Credits.”