The Plant (Chicago, IL)

The Plant is a 93,500 sq. ft. former meat packing plant in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood that has been repurposed into a research and production facility comprising a collaborative community of small food businesses. A complex and highly interrelated system, The Plant is a living laboratory that demonstrates techniques for reimagining waste as a resource, achieving economies of scale, and incubating small businesses. The goal of The Plant is to create replicable models for efficiencies that close loops of waste and energy and to encourage others to implement these techniques to combat climate change. The owner and operator of The Plant is Bubbly Dynamics, LLC, a social enterprise whose mission is to create replicable models for ecologically responsible and sustainable urban industrial development. Established in 2002, Bubbly Dynamics is dedicated to incubating small businesses in formerly vacant, industrial buildings located in disinvested communities, and sharing our findings on the creative approaches to resource and energy efficiencies via an open-sourced toolkit. Bubbly Dynamics' first project was the Chicago Sustainable Manufacturing Center located in the Stockyards Industrial Corridor. This 24,000 sq. ft. former paint warehouse was sustainably renovated using salvaged materials and green building techniques. It is now fully occupied with independent manufacturing businesses and artists.