Houston, Texas, June 25, 2015 — Indoor Harvest Corp (OTCQB:INQD), through its
brand name Indoor Harvest™, is a design
build contractor, developer, marketer and direct-seller of commercial grade
aeroponic and hydroponic fixtures and supporting systems for use in urban
Controlled Environment Agriculture and Building Integrated Agriculture. The
Company is pleased to provide an update on the Pasadena, Texas Community
Located Agricultural Research Area ("CLARA") project.
On March 31, 2015 the Company announced the signing of a LOI with the
City of Pasadena, Texas to fund the establishment and provisioning of an indoor
agricultural facility (vertical farm) to be located in Pasadena, Texas. Under the
LOI, the City was to provide Indoor Harvest, or a partner of their designation
with City approval, with two facilities owned by the City for the sum of ten
dollars ($10.00) per annum for a period not to exceed twenty (20) years as well
as provide tax abatements on these properties for use in a CLARA project. In
addition, the Pasadena Second Century Corp. (economic development entity for
the City of Pasadena) has been asked by City officials to consider a budgetary
proposal of $500,000 as seed money for the project’s economic development portion in north Pasadena.
Mr. Chad Sykes, Chief Executive Officer of Indoor Harvest, stated,
"We've received a timeline for the project through the City. We're
currently in the final stages of drafting the MOU and expect to be in a
position to begin work on the project as soon as August, based on the timeline
provided by the City. All of the parties involved are working together to
create an agriculture campus in Pasadena that we hope will become a model for
the rest of the nation. By combining agricultural research, education and
commercial operations in one campus, we're working to build a foundation to
turn North Pasadena into a leader in new, innovative agricultural trends. We've
also begun discussions with several potential commercial partners and investors
interested in locating operations at the CLARA campus. Although we don’t have any binding agreements, interest seems to be significant given
the background and history of groups with whom we are discussing the project."
The CLARA project, based on current negotiations, is expected to be
divided into two phases. Phase One will focus on developing the non-profit
aspects of the project and is envisioned to include the construction of a 6,000
sq. ft. vertical farm R&D facility and 6,000 sq. ft. of classroom and
office space. Phase Two is
envisioned to support a commercial retail operation with greenhouses built on
approximately two acres of land adjacent to the vertical farm and education
centers.
The Phase One vertical farm facility is intended to serve dual roles,
with Indoor Harvest using the facility as a demonstration farm and R&D
facility and Harris County BUILD Partnership, a non-profit group, using the
facility for educational and charitable purposes. It is anticipated that the crops grown will be donated, or
sold at cost, to provide fresh produce to low income families in the North
Pasadena area. The entire proposed
campus area, almost two city blocks, will be designed and built to allow the
flow of tourists without impacting operations. The City has been asked to
develop a project overview to be presented in August to department heads at the
Pasadena Independent School District's Kirk Lewis Career & Technical High School
and the Continuing and Professional Development Department of San Jacinto
College regarding academic curriculum development to be located at the CLARA
campus.
The Harris County BUILD Partnership was established in January 2015
to eliminate the conditions that cause food insecurity in north Pasadena by
launching a new healthy, accessible, and community-supported local food
system. The conveners of the BUILD
Partnership are the Houston Food Bank, the Harris County Public Health &
Environmental Services ("HCPHES") and The University of Texas MD
Anderson Cancer Center. Additional members of the BUILD Partnership include CHI
St. Luke’s Health,
Memorial Hermann Health System, Brighter Bites, CAN DO Houston, City of
Pasadena, Neighborhood Centers Inc., Pasadena Health Center and the U.T. School
of Public Health.
The BUILD Partnership is an extension of Healthy Living Matters
(HLM), a county-wide collaborative of over 80 organizations chartered in 2011
to address childhood obesity in Harris County. There is also a
Pasadena-specific version of HLM called the HLM-Pasadena Community Task Force
that has 23 members local to the Pasadena community.
On June 9, 2015, the Harris County BUILD Health Partnership was selected
as one of seven projects out of over 300 applicants nationwide, to receive a
$250,000 grant from the inaugural BUILD Health Challenge class. The
announcement was made live from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.,
featuring Karen DeSalvo, Acting Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services and was followed by a congratulatory letter from
LaMar Hasbrouck, MD, MPH and executive director of the National Association of
County and City Health Officials who remarked, “I look
forward to tracking your progress and learning more about your projects’ best practices and challenges.” A portion of this
grant funding will be used towards setting up the academic and non-profit
portion of the CLARA project.
The Phase One initial project meeting has already been held. Caleb
Harper, the Principal Investigator and Director of
MITCityFarm, attended the meeting. As part of the non-profit academic portion
of the CLARA project, all research would be made open source. The MIT Media
Lab's Open Agriculture (OpenAG) Initiative seeks to make agricultural research
and data more available to researchers through an innovative cloud based
system. Indoor Harvest is excited to continue its relationship with MITCityFarm
by looking at ways to deploy the Open Ag platform at the CLARA research
facility.
Chris Higgins from HortAmericas, a company involved in horticulture
product distribution, consulting and services, also attended the meeting.
Indoor Harvest has selected HortAmericas as a project consultant to the CLARA
project. HortAmericas will assist the project by evaluating methods and process
and providing feedback through the design phase as well as assisting in
preparation of standard operating procedures.
It is expected that the project MOU will be finalized and property
lease executed by August 2015 based on an existing timeline provided by the
City. Construction on Phase One is planned for completion June 2016.
Phase Two of the project is anticipated to be developed on two acres
of land currently available adjacent to the existing properties being provided
by the City. Indoor Harvest, as the primary developer of the campus, expects to
be able to provide commercial operators who build on the CLARA campus a unique
group of incentives and key advantages in regards to distribution,
manufacturing intelligence and access to resourcing and key agricultural
production talent. Phase Two timeline will be dependent upon securing
commercial partners who have adequate funding and approval by the City. The
Company is currently in talks with several commercial parties interested in
building on the CLARA campus.
In addition, the City of Pasadena is currently considering creating a
tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ) in the immediate area surrounding the
CLARA campus. A TIRZ is a public
financing structure that Texas law allows to target tax revenue helping to
support redevelopment in underserved areas. Such a zone, if created, could
provide an additional economic incentive for tangential services to locate on
the project site. As of now, the
City is not obligated to create a TIRZ zone and no such zone may ever come to
fruition.
Consistent with the SEC’s April
2013 guidance on using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to make
corporate disclosures and announce key information in compliance with
Regulation FD, Indoor Harvest is alerting investors and other members of the
general public that Indoor Harvest will provide weekly updates on operations
and progress through its social media on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
Investors, potential investors and individuals interested in our company are
encouraged to keep informed by following us on Twitter, Youtube or
Facebook.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/indoorharvest
ABOUT INDOOR HARVEST CORP
Indoor Harvest Corp, through its brand name Indoor Harvest™, is an emerging design build contractor and
OEM manufacturer of commercial aeroponic and hydroponic system fixtures and
framing systems for use in Controlled Environment Agriculture and Building
Integrated Agriculture. Our patent pending aeroponic fixtures are based upon a
modular concept in which primary components are interchangeable. We are
developing our aeroponic and hydroponic systems for use by both horticulture
enthusiasts and commercial operators who seek to utilize aeroponic and
hydroponic vertical farming methods within a controlled indoor environment.
Please visit our website at http://www.indoorharvest.com for more information about our Company.
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
This
release contains certain “forward-looking statements” relating to
the business of Indoor Harvest and its subsidiary companies, which can be
identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “estimates,” “believes,” “anticipates,” “intends,” expects” and similar
expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks
and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from
those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Certain
of these risks and uncertainties are or will be described in greater detail in
our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking
statements are based on Indoor Harvest’s current expectations and beliefs concerning
future developments and their potential effects on Indoor Harvest. There can be
no assurance that future developments affecting Indoor Harvest will be those
anticipated by Indoor Harvest. These forward-looking statements involve a
number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond the control of the
Company) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to
be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking
statements. Indoor Harvest undertakes no obligation to publicly update or
revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable
securities laws.
Contacts:
Indoor Harvest Corp
CEO, Mr. Chad Sykes
713-410-7903
Visit our corporate website at http://www.hortamericas.com
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