Amid the law firms, banks and glass towers of downtown Chicago, there is an unlikely secret tucked into the corporate landscape.
Eighteen floors above The Loop, inside a high-rise office building, a farm is quietly growing.
Russell Steinberg, founder of Farm Zero, launched the unusual operation at 30 North LaSalle Street in October 2024, bringing a new model of vertical farming to the Windy City.
‘Chicago is definitely interesting,’ Steinberg, 45, told the Daily Mail. ‘It notoriously has a bit less quality produce in general, but it also sits on 20 percent of the world’s fresh water [with the Great Lakes].’
Steinberg, a Riverwoods, Illinois, native who previously operated an insurance advisory firm, said the idea of farming had never been on his radar until a friend told him about buying a rotting grocery-store bell pepper filled with worms, he told the Daily Mail.
The friend, a vegetarian, was so disgusted by the vegetable that she warned she might leave Chicago rather than have herself and her nine-year-old child risk eating food infested with mealworms.
That complaint pushed Steinberg to think about how the city’s existing resources could be used to improve access to fresher produce, a mission he summed up to the Daily Mail by saying: ‘Food is medicine.’
As the pandemic reshaped corporate life and left offices underused amid remote and hybrid work, Steinberg said he saw an opportunity to turn vacant workspace into something productive and sustainable.
Hidden inside 30 North LaSalle Street in Chicago is a vertical farm on the 18th floor
Vertical farming, one of many controlled environment farming methods, offers benefits including reducing food miles, lowering transportation needs, delivering fresher produce, conserving water and reducing pesticide usage
Farm Zero Founder, Russel Steinberg, 45, said he came up with the idea for the farm after a friend complained they could not get fresh vegetables in the city
‘All the infrastructure’s already here,’ he said. ‘They have infrastructure that’s engineered to support hundreds of companies and thousands of people.’
He partnered with real estate developer, Lee Golub, 65, and the LaSalle Street vertical farm was born, producing micro and leafy greens and edible flowers that are germinated and grown under LED lights with water and irrigation systems overlooked by five employees.
The produce is then shipped straight to local restaurants and hospitals.
Charles Haracz, the executive chef of one of the company’s biggest customers, Blue Plate, told The Chicago Tribune: ‘We’re really looking for local, clean ingredients, fresh food.
‘I think we have an opportunity at Blue Plate to change how people eat and think about food.’
Haracz added that, for his restaurant, fresher ingredients are a huge priority but not always a feasible option.
‘We really don’t have a lot of opportunities in Chicago or the Midwest. I have to buy from California because there aren’t many other options,’ he continued.
Steinberg explained that one of Farm Zero’s biggest pros is its ability to produce year-round unlike traditional farming that relies on seasonal conditions.
Farm Zero opened inside 30 North LaSalle Street in October 2024, introducing vertical farming to the Windy City. The Chicago skyline is pictured
The farm grows microgreens, leafy greens, and edible flowers, which are germinated and grown under LED lights with water and irrigation systems overlooked by five people
Steinberg said office buildings have all the right infrastructure to be transformed into farms
The concept farm is equally a scientific experiment as it is a business, and Steinberg said Chicago is the perfect area to test vertical farming as it has all four seasons.
In order to know if it works, the model has to be compared to traditional farming in the same area.
‘You want to be able to see how the outside world affects the inside world,’ Steinberg told the Daily Mail.
The farm’s practices include recycling water, that Steinberg said leaves them with a smaller water bill than other tenants in the building.
‘And we use very little water,’ Steinberg told the Daily Mail. ‘In fact, in our concept farm, we use less water than a typical office tenant.’
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Despite the positives of the process, vertical farming offers its own set of challenges, which has led to many different outcomes in terms of success.
‘The primary challenge is economic feasibility,’ Kheir Al-Kodmany, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois, told the Daily Mail.
‘Vertical farming requires substantial investment in buildings, lighting, climate-control systems, automation and monitoring techniques. Operating costs – particularly electricity – remain high.’
Sasha Vry, a farm operations worker at Farm Zero, prepares a plant bed inside the vertical farm in Chicago
Charles Haracz, the executive chef of one of the farm’s biggest customers, Blue Plate, said that fresh ingredients are a huge priority
Haracz added that, for their restaurant, fresher ingredients are not always a feasible option and said: ‘We really don’t have a lot of opportunities in Chicago or the Midwest. I have to buy from California because there aren’t many other options’
The close friend of Steinberg’s and real estate developer Lee Golub, 65, was one of the company’s first investors
Al-Kodmany said that most facilities can profitably grow a limited range of crops, mainly leafy greens, herbs and microgreens.
‘Many companies have demonstrated that the technology works, but achieving consistent profitability has proven much more difficult.’
According to Steinberg, Farm Zero is close to breaking even and he expects to reach around $300,000 in revenue in the next year, with plans to move into two new office spaces.
The balance of positive and negative results of vertical farming is delicate, Al-Kodmany expressed. It offers benefits including reducing food miles, lowering transportation needs, delivering fresher produce, conserving water and reducing pesticide usage.
‘However, it can become unsustainable when the cost of growing food indoors exceeds the market value of the crops being produced.
‘The long-term viability of vertical farming ultimately depends on whether its environmental and logistical advantages can offset its higher operating costs,’ the professor, who explores the topic in his book The Vertical Farm, continued.
According to Al-Kodmany, energy usage continues to be the biggest challenge that vertical farming faces due to the heavy reliance on artificial lighting, climate control, water circulation and environmental monitoring systems.
Even then, another challenge is presented by the typically higher cost of real estate in big cities.
Steinberg’s goal is to covert 50 million square feet of office space into vertical farms by 2050
Kheir Al-Kodmany, a professor of urban planning at the University of Illinois, said energy usage continues to be the biggest challenge that vertical farming faces due to the heavy reliance on artificial lighting, climate control, water circulation and environmental monitoring systems
The next farm in the city will be at 125 South Wacker Drive (pictured above). It is set to open in July
‘If rents and real estate prices continue to rise, vertical farms may face increasing economic pressure, particularly in prime urban locations. Their success will depend on whether they can generate sufficient value to justify those locations,’ Al-Kodmany continued.
‘One promising strategy is the adaptive reuse of underutilized buildings, including vacant warehouses and partially vacant office buildings. In that sense, vertical farming could become part of the solution to urban vacancy rather than a competitor for scarce space.’
Steinberg told the Daily Mail that as his business continues to grow, he has plans to partner with Dutch companies with hopes of expanding their produce range in just a few years to include tomatoes, berries, peppers and cucumbers.
He’s also partnering with local businesses, including in talks with former President Barack Obama’s new library in the city, to set up pop-ups to allow people to test the food grown and to educate the public about vertical farming.
His goal is to covert 50 million square feet of office space into vertical farms by 2050, he told the Daily Mail. The next farm in the city will be at 125 South Wacker Drive which is set to open in July.
He said adding more vertical farms will create a healthier population, lower healthcare costs, and take care of the office vacancy problem.
