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Indoor Farm Aims to Bring Local Food — and Revival — to Waukegan
- Bob Benenson
- Aug 3
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
College of Lake County's Urban Farm Center Readies for Oct. 17 Ribbon Cutting
When Eliza Fournier joined Illinois' College of Lake County (CLC) as Urban Farm Director in late 2021, she took on the task of planning an indoor growing facility at the school's Lakeshore Campus in Waukegan — one that would provide farm education opportunities, increased availability of healthy food, and growth in the economically challenged city of 89,000.
In doing so, she had a tough act to follow: her own. Eliza had previously spent 20 years as project director for Chicago Botanic Garden's Windy City Harvest urban agriculture program. And in that role, she spearheaded the construction of Farm on Ogden, located in the underserved Chicago neighborhood of North Lawndale since 2018.
That experience served her well, and now she and her team are putting the finishing touches on the Urban Farm Center, located on Waukegan's North Sheridan Road within eyeshot of Lake Michigan. The Center is scheduled to hold a soft opening on Saturday, October 17, and will throw open the doors to the public in January.
The culmination of the project will mark much more than just the addition of an growing facility to the college campus. Located in Lake County's seat and longstanding industrial heart, the $20 million project represents a major investment in community health, local food access, and urban revitalization.
Waukegan Rising
When many Chicago-area residents think of Lake County, their mental image is that of affluent North Shore suburbs such as Lake Forest and Highland Park. Waukegan has a very different profile.
Long a bustling commercial and industrial hub, Waukegan’s downtown was a quiet place on July 28 when I visited the Urban Farm Center project with Eliza. Decades of industrial decline and factory closures left behind vacant storefronts and legacy environmental challenges. Lake County holds eight of Illinois’s 11 EPA Superfund sites, with five situated in Waukegan alone.
Despite these historical hurdles, energy is shifting. The Lake County government complex, Waukegan's largest employer, has provided some economic stability.
Eliza pointed out the changing streetscape along Genesee Street, Waukegan's main drag, where new restaurants, diners and food concepts are gradually filling once-empty spaces, and the revitalized Genesee Theatre hosts major artists and speakers.
"Probably when I started four years ago, I would say every third storefront was vacant," Eliza noted. "Now I'd say it's every fifth."
Unlike many cities that lost big parts of their industrial bases, Waukegan's population has remained steady, in large part because of an influx of Hispanics who, according to the 2020 census, made up nearly 60 percent of the city's residents.
The Urban Farm Center aims to accelerate this momentum. This project was conceived around 2018 by a coalition of Lake County stakeholders, philanthropic organizations (notably the Steans Family Foundation, also a major supporter of the Farm on Ogden) and community leaders. It took firm root when then-CLC President Lori Suddick and the Board of Trustees adopted it into the college’s master plan.
Ground was broken in May 2025, funded through a combination of private philanthropy, public grants — such as a Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure (RFSI) grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — and college capital.
Transparency, Accessibility, and Community "Front Door"
Unlike traditional commercial indoor farms — which often operate inside windowless, corrugated metal buildings — CLC’s Urban Farm Center was deliberately designed with transparency in mind. Located directly along the sidewalk, expansive glass windows will allow passersby to look straight into the growing and gathering spaces.
Inside, the ground level will serve as a social and community hub featuring a retail store stocked with fresh produce, healthy locally produced snacks and coffee. The shop will also house an expanded version of CLC’s campus bookstore, creating an inviting, everyday space for students and local residents alike.
"When somebody, especially living in a city, may not feel comfortable walking onto a farm... or even a college campus," Eliza explained, "They might think, 'Is this for me? Do you have to be enrolled here to be here?' But we all know what to do in a store. How can the Urban Farm Center be the front door, not only for what the farm center has to offer, but everything that Lakeshore Campus and CLC have to offer?"
Cutting-Edge Growing and Workforce Development
Upstairs, the facility turns into an active classroom and production engine. Designed as an educational and workforce development node, the farm utilizes multiple indoor growing techniques:
Deep Water Culture Hydroponics: The primary vertical growing room utilizes nutrient-rich water channels to cultivate leafy greens. According to Eliza, the initial buildout alone can yield up to 36,000 heads of lettuce per year, with capacity to double production to 72,000 heads as market demand grows.
Controlled-Environment Greenhouse: A semi-controlled space designed for Dutch-bucket-style growing will produce seasonal crops like tomatoes and cucumbers from September through April, leaving summer production to regional outdoor farms.
Mushroom Lab: A specialized, climate-controlled laboratory dedicated to specialty mushroom cultivation.
To maintain strict food safety standards and simulate real-world commercial operations, the facility includes dedicated gowning areas, personal protective equipment (PPE) protocols, locker rooms, and processing spaces. Students and workforce trainees will gain hands-on experience in hydroponics, food safety and post-harvest handling, earning credentials that seamlessly transition into career pathways or higher degrees at CLC.
Aggregation and Shared Infrastructure for Local Farmers
Beyond indoor production, the Urban Farm Center is built to serve as a regional aggregation and processing hub for northeastern Illinois farmers.
Through funding from the USDA RFSI grant, the center is equipped with commercial walk-in coolers, loading docks, and wash/pack stations. Local growers — such as Adam's Organic Acres or farm partners at the Liberty Prairie non-profit (located near CLC's other campus in Grayslake) — can drop off wholesale or raw produce to be washed, packed or stored. [Note: Eliza Fournier serves as Liberty Prairie's Board chair.]
This setup provides double benefits: It frees up valuable time for small-scale farmers while supplying the farm store and local institutional buyers (like hospitals and schools) with fresh, aggregated regional produce.
The facility also houses a state-of-the-art commercial shared kitchen built to accommodate up to four food businesses simultaneously. Outfitted with specialized equipment — including a 40-gallon tilt kettle, a combi oven, commercial dehydrators, and locked dry/cold storage — the kitchen will allow local food entrepreneurs, caterers and value-added producers to scale their production without enduring crippling capital expenses.
Looking Ahead
The soft opening on October 17 will coincide with Waukegan’s monthly ArtWauk and popular "Zombie Walk" event (from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.). Following the grand opening and CLC's winter break, the center will open its doors daily to the public in January.
By combining urban agriculture, small business incubation, public health, and educational access right in the heart of downtown Waukegan, Eliza and the team at CLC are cultivating a brighter, more resilient local food future for Lake County.
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