Lawsuits over unpaid work at Plenty indoor farm dismissed following firm’s Chapter 11 exit

by Jack Jacobs

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Plenty Unlimited continues to operate its indoor farm in Chesterfield following the dismissal of lawsuits against the company seeking payment for work on an expansion project there and Plenty’s recent exit from bankruptcy. (BizSense file photos)

The legal setbacks at a highly touted indoor farming operation in Chesterfield appear to be in the rear-view.

Lawsuits filed by contractors seeking payment for work on Plenty Unlimited’s high-profile indoor farm project at Meadowville Technology Park were recently dismissed in Chesterfield Circuit Court.

The dismissals follow Plenty’s exit from bankruptcy, which the company said involved resolutions of the lawsuits and numerous mechanic’s liens filed against its strawberry farm at 13500 N. Enon Church Road.

In a prepared statement, Plenty said the Chesterfield facility is active and the company intends to complete the expansion project that was at the center of the lawsuits. The project will increase production at the indoor farm.

“Plenty operated the Virginia farm throughout the restructuring and continues to do so today. We are looking forward to ramping up production of strawberries as we further build out the facility in the coming months,” a company spokesperson said in an email last week.

Plenty was hit with lawsuits earlier this year by contractors hired for the project, who alleged they were owed money for unpaid work done for what’s referred to as the Plenty Farm 2 project.

Whiting-Turner was tapped to be the general contractor and said in its mid-March lawsuit that $69 million worth of work had been completed for the project, of which the firm had been paid $48.9 million by that time of the filing.

Mechanicsville-based Electrical Controls & Maintenance and Glen Allen-based Century Construction Co. also filed lawsuits against Plenty, seeking money the firms said they were owed.

Attorneys who represented the contractors were either unavailable or didn’t respond to requests for comment. The lawsuits were preceded by mechanic’s liens filed against the property by the three contracting firms and other companies, many of them locally based.

The suits filed by ECM and Century were dismissed with prejudice, while Whiting-Turner’s case was nonsuited without prejudice in Chesterfield court in June. Whiting-Turner also sued Plenty in federal court, and that suit has also been dismissed.

Whiting-Turner was represented by Michael Branca and Steven Gentoso of Peckar & Abramson’s D.C. office. ECM was represented by Tom Wolf, Joseph Rainsbury and Tyler Miko of Richmond-based O’Hagan Meyer. Century was represented by Glen Allen-based attorney Chris Hill.

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Plenty’s indoor farm is expected to be the first facility of a $300 million campus at Meadowville Technology Park.

Plenty ducked into bankruptcy court in March, a move it blamed on market forces and challenges in securing capital investment, following the lawsuits filed earlier in the year and the temporary halt on the expansion in late 2024. The company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which allowed it to restructure its operations, in May.

An attorney for Plenty told the bankruptcy judge that the company had secured commitments from contractors to complete the Chesterfield project and also had acquired financing needed for the company to continue operations. One Madison, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and other investors provided funding support for the restructuring and exit financing.

In a late May news release announcing that its reorganization plan had been approved, Plenty stated that “many” creditors were set to rejoin the expansion effort after the claims negotiations.

“As part of restructuring under Chapter 11, all lawsuits and liens related to the Virginia farm were resolved,” the Plenty spokesperson said. “We truly appreciate the support we have received from stakeholders and business partners, and are grateful for their continued partnership as we move forward.”

More details about the expansion project, such as its current construction timeline and scope, were unavailable. Plenty declined to make a company representative available for an interview to discuss the project.

Work appeared to have resumed at the facility by the early part of last week. Plenty said that Whiting-Turner remains the project’s general contractor. Plenty deferred to Century and ECM to comment on whether the firms are still part of the project.

The highly touted Plenty project was announced in 2022 and described as a $300 million campus of multiple farm facilities that would stretch across 120 acres at Meadowville Technology Park. So far, Plenty has opened only one indoor farm.

When the first farm opened on 22 acres in 2024, the company described it as a 100,000-square-foot facility with 40,000 square feet of growing space. Plenty leases the facility from California-based Realty Income Properties. Plenty is based in Laramie, Wyoming, where the company has a research and development facility. 

The post Lawsuits over unpaid work at Plenty indoor farm dismissed following firm’s Chapter 11 exit appeared first on Richmond BizSense.

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