Indoor farming startup Plenty to finish Chesterfield facility as part of bankruptcy workout

Plenty Unlimited’s indoor farming facility in Meadowville Technology Park. (BizSense file)

After construction stalled at its Chesterfield indoor farm and led to lawsuits and a bankruptcy filing, Plenty Unlimited is moving forward with plans to complete the work after all.

The California-based firm on Wednesday secured court approval of a Chapter 11 restructuring plan that would allow it to finish an expansion of its indoor strawberry farm. The farm at 13500 N. Enon Church Road had been hit with lawsuits and mechanic’s liens from contractors saying they were owed payment for work on the project.

Plenty has secured commitments from contractors to complete construction on the Chesterfield facility as well as for financing for the company to continue operations, Anthony Grossi, an attorney for Plenty, told the court.

He said there was “complete consensus from our construction counterparties to complete the build-out of our Richmond facility, and committed capital to fund our operations for the foreseeable future.”

The current status of construction at the company’s facility in Meadowville Technology Park and when the project is anticipated to be completed are unclear. A Plenty spokeswoman wasn’t available for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Grossi said Plenty had negotiated a settlement with general contractor Whiting-Turner, which was tapped to oversee the expansion of the Plenty facility. The contractor was among several firms that sued Plenty over alleged lack of payment for work at the site.

Whiting-Turner said in its mid-March lawsuit filed in Chesterfield Circuit Court that $69 million worth of work had taken place on the project and the firm had been paid only $48.9 million.

Mechanicsville-based Electrical Controls & Maintenance and Glen Allen-based Century Construction Co. also filed lawsuits against Plenty for unpaid work. Numerous other locally based companies filed mechanic’s liens on the Plenty property, which the company leases from California-based Realty Income Properties.

Plenty filed for bankruptcy in March in the Southern District of Texas. The company blamed market forces and challenges in securing capital investment for its decision to seek bankruptcy protection.

The company in 2022 announced plans for a $300 million campus of multiple farm facilities that would stretch across 120 acres at Meadowville Technology Park.

To date, only one farming facility has been built at the site, which Plenty described as a 100,000-square-foot facility with 40,000 square feet of growing space when it opened late last year. The company has previously said that strawberries grown at the Chesterfield farm hit the market in January. Construction on the facility’s expansion started in the fall of 2023.

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