A pair of high-tech greenhouses that were expected to bring 80 jobs to the North Country has been delayed.
North Country Growers executive Marguerite Piret described the project at a planning board meeting earlier this year.
“The acreage will be approximately 10.3 acres of salad greens and about 9.5 of tomatoes.”
That means about 8 million pounds of tomatoes and 15 million heads of lettuce a year would be grown in water blended with nutrients, Piret said. The produce would be picked fresh and delivered the next day to stores and restaurants in New England.
But the company still needs to buy about 170 acres from Berlin for about $680,000.
That's been delayed several times, but Kelly Wieser, a Campton lawyer working on the project, says financing details are coming together, including a loan guarantee from the USDA, and the final piece is private equity.
Wieser said construction should begin in the spring with the greenhouses operating by the end of 2018.
