St. Joseph’s College and a company backed by Cate Street Capital have ended a $750,000 agreement to build a greenhouse as part of the college’s new Institute for Local Food Systems Innovation.
Cate Street Capital was behind the failed bid to revive the Great Northern Paper Mill in East Millinocket in 2014, despite receiving millions in taxpayer dollars.
Last fall, St. Joseph’s College announced Florida-based company Organic Nutrition would award the school $750,000 to fund a greenhouse. It’s a key component of the college’s new Institute, which promotes local, sustainable agriculture. But that agreement — which had been in the works for about a year — is now off, says Peter Nielsen, St. Joseph’s entrepreneur-in-residence.
“All parties agreed to that, that what we had begun to explore in March of 2017 looked good at that point, but when we got to the end of the year, it just wasn’t making sense to anybody,” he says.
Nielsen says St. Joseph’s is working with many other partners and will still move forward with the plan.
A spokeswoman from Cate Street Capital did not return a request for comment by airtime.
