WESTBROOK — The developers of a four-story hydroponic farm said Wednesday that they have secured nearly $60 million in financing to wrap up construction and begin operating early next year in the city’s downtown.

Vertical Harvest Farms, an indoor farming company focused on microgreens, said $59.5 million in financing will advance its work to develop and operate the 51,000-square-foot vertical farm. The Westbrook business is expected employ 47 workers, with half the workforce including people with intellectual and physical disabilities, CEO Nona Yehia said.

Bond markets that the business initially sought to tap “dried up” three years ago, forcing the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, company to look elsewhere for financing, Yehia said.

Even now, financing has improved, but is still rocky. Inflation in March was 3.5%, still too high for the Federal Reserve even as it has fallen from a high of 9.1% in June 2022.

Vertical Harvest Farms got a “reasonable deal,” Yehia said. “No one is giving a good deal now.”

In public-private partnerships, funding was led by Madison One, a credit union-owned collaborative, and supported by Waterside Commercial Finance LLC. A $25 million loan is backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Business and Industry Loan Guarantees, and $23.8 million uses another Agriculture Department agency, the Rural Energy for America Program Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Loans.

An $8.7 million loan is administered by the Efficiency Maine Green Bank and issued through Nuveen Green Capital, and the American Rescue Plan – federal COVID-19 stimulus funding – was tapped for $2 million.

Hydroponic farming is the practice of growing plants using a water-based nutrient solution rather than soil. Construction that began in Westbrook in 2022 was to have been completed this year, but Vertical Harvest Farms will be at full capacity in early 2025, Yehia said. “We were a little delayed,” she said Wednesday at the construction site. The project was “long and arduous,” but provided developers with lessons about financing, she said.

Vertical Harvest Farms says the project is a significant part of New England Food Vision, a regional effort to locally produce 30% of food consumed in the region by 2030 and 50% by 2060, by producing approximately 2.5 million pounds of fresh, leafy greens a year. Produce will include lettuce, petite greens, microgreens and herbs.

“No product wants to travel 2,000 miles. It’s devoid of nutrition,” Yehia said.

Vertical Harvest Farms said traditional agriculture is under greater stress due to extreme weather, water scarcity and climate change. As a result, diversifying food production, leveraging technological innovations, reducing supply chains and ensuring access to fresh local food are imperative, it said.

The Westbrook building, dominated by 36-foot high windows, will provide 200,000 square feet of a “growing canopy,” she said.

What is the next evolution of the factory?” she said. “If we can reconnect the farm to the urban center, who will be the new farmer?”

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