Global design manufacturer Herman Miller, Inc. is joining forces with Sustainable Brands®, BASF, General Motors, and Green Standards to support The Michigan Urban Farming Initiative, a Detroit-based nonprofit whose mission is to use urban agriculture as a platform to promote education, sustainability, and community and to uplift and empower urban neighborhoods. MUFI is debuting America’s first sustainable urban agrihood, an alternative neighborhood growth model in Detroit’s lower North End that positions agriculture as the centerpiece of a mixed-use urban development.
To serve as the urban agrihood’s central activity hub, the partners will restore a three-story long-vacant building across from MUFI’s urban garden into a Community Resource Center (CRC) and transform adjacent vacant land into a healthy food café. The 3,200 square-foot, box-shaped CRC will offer educational programs, event and meeting space, and serve as the organization’s new operational headquarters. It will also house two commercial kitchens on the first floor that will service the café and allow for future production and packaging of valued goods. The project is scheduled to be unveiled as part of Sustainable Brands ‘17 Detroit conference, held at the Cobo Center May 22-25.