LAS VEGAS | 30-Story Farm | VISION

mdiederi · #1 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 7:30 AM**

Proposal to build the world's first vertical farm.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/...farm-1.2b.html

Is this feasible?

Grumpy · #2 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 7:33 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdiederi

Is this feasible?

You can ask the same question for the planned vertical graveyard.

PuyoPiyo · #3 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 7:50 AM**

That is very interesting... Bringing the farms to the URBAN instead of rurals!

Aleks · #4 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 8:53 AM**

There was a thread about this already. Isn't that the same design as the one that was proposed for NY?

brickell · #5 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 9:27 AM**

I just can't see how they budget $15M from tourism. Who would people pay that much, when they can see real farms for free?

worldwide · #6 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 10:03 AM**

this is a very good idea. cities should be getting as much food as possible from local sources, and with desert cities and global warming and peak oil this may become the standard in the future

mdiederi · #7 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 4:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aleks0o01

There was a thread about this already. Isn't that the same design as the one that was proposed for NY?

Ah, I didn't see that thread, but maybe it is the same design and the developer is shopping it around.

Rico Rommheim · #8 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 4:45 PM**

This is a great idea! Revolutionnary!

LivingIn622 · #9 Posted **Jan 5, 2008, 7:07 PM**

Casinos make alot. This is a great idea, if it really makes as much as expected.

aaron38 · #10 Posted **Jan 6, 2008, 1:24 AM**

I think it's a great idea. A steel structure and a glass curtainwall makes a perfect greenhouse. Hydroponics means you don't need heavy soil, the water can be recycled.

And with the syrocketing cost of oil, transporting fresh produce hundreds of miles to major cities is becomming incredibly expensive, which means that significant cost savings could be possible with this approach.

And with the loss of our manufacturing overseas, there is a ton of cheap blighted industrial land around our cities that can be used for these agricultural towers. The economics of these should work out favoribly.

I really don't see them as a tourist draw except for class field trips. They wouldn't really be located in the best part of town.

mdiederi · #11 Posted **Jan 13, 2008, 2:18 AM**

No real project, not even a vision, just a concept being kicked around.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/gam...yscraper-farm/
No wonder there was nothing in the planning agendas or even the local press.

Exodus · #12 Posted **Jan 13, 2008, 3:59 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by brickell

I just can't see how they budget $15M from tourism. Who would people pay that much, when they can see real farms for free?

You would think, but at the rate they are building stupid sprawldivisions we might actually need that one day.

Canadian Mind · #13 Posted **Jan 14, 2008, 4:34 AM**

Wouldn't there be difficulties getting water up high?

Also, unless one floor of such a project was several hectares in size, I can't see the efficiency of such a thing.

Plompy Lfeata · #14 Posted **Jan 15, 2008, 10:29 PM**

Quote:

Wouldn't there be difficulties getting water up high?

they would use pumps i think...but if they can shoot concrete up over a thousand feet i dont think water will be a problem. id love to see something like this an a really big scale taking over past industrial zones. and maybe somone should tell the amish about it since they seem to have trouble finding land nowadays

Also i have to wonder how they plan to pick all the food they would grow in a huge farm building. theres no way your getting a tractor up there, so im guessing they use the always ready immigrant?

Raraavis · #15 Posted **Jan 17, 2008, 4:46 PM**

Even with food and fuel prices at near record highs this is not economically viable. Unless you can develop some kind of genetically engineered food that can only be grown indoors that people will pay very high prices for. Also the cost of land in cities, and the cost of steel and other building materials are so high that even if a crop needed to be grown indoors it would be cheaper to build single level or even low-rise green houses outside the city.

If someone comes up with an economic model that makes 30 story greenhouses profitable than I would love to see them. They would be very cool.

HeyHey · #16 Posted **Jan 17, 2008, 5:21 PM**

Unless they're growing marijuana I don't see how they're going to have anywhere near $25 million in revenue from produce. If each floor is 1/3 of an acre that only give 10 acres total area for produce to grow and be supported. There are thousands and thousands of farmers in the US that struggle to make a living with 100 acres!

arkhitektor · #17 Posted **Jan 17, 2008, 7:26 PM**

If Las Vegas really needed its own greenhouse to grow food in, they could far more feasably and cheaply just build a giant one-level greenhouse on some of the millions of acres of empty desert that surround the city. The idea of a 33-story farm, makes little sense, even where land is scare, but in Las Vegas of all places- it is completely unfeasable.

Laurent · #18 Posted **Jan 17, 2008, 7:39 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

Wouldn't there be difficulties getting water up high?

Also, unless one floor of such a project was several hectares in size, I can't see the efficiency of such a thing.

It all depends on what they're growing. As HeyHey was saying pot would be profitable - and although we know they won't be growing that, they might have found some other very expensive thing that is profitable. Maybe they'll grow exotic fruits or something (nowhere near the profit margins of weed, but who knows . . . ) My guess is that the stuff will be super boosted with fertilizer & bioteched to the max so that they could get like one crop per week or something. Freshness & availability will also be unbeatable (for their local urban clients), so they'll definitely be able to charge a huge premium for those aspects. Finally, I think that those last two points are the real drivers for profit margins in this project. Tourists in Vegas have money and want things now . . . they might be ready to pay a hell of lot more than we'd expect. Anyway, I don't know - just rambling ideas

Surrealplaces · #19 Posted **Jan 17, 2008, 7:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdiederi

Proposal to build the world's first vertical farm.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/...farm-1.2b.html

Is this feasible?

I guess we won't know how feasible it ois until it's running, but it is one hell of a cool idea.

Surrealplaces · #20 Posted **Jan 17, 2008, 7:56 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by arkhitektor

If Las Vegas really needed its own greenhouse to grow food in, they could far more feasably and cheaply just build a giant one-level greenhouse on some of the millions of acres of empty desert that surround the city. The idea of a 33-story farm, makes little sense, even where land is scare, but in Las Vegas of all places- it is completely unfeasable.

lol!, that's a good point there is plaenty of land nearby. A vertical greenhouse would seemingly make more sense in a place like Tokyo.