The Food Bank of Delaware hopes to break ground on a new $34 million building soon.
The goal is to start work on a facility in Milford in late September, located on West Liberty Way, just south of the Delaware Veterans Home and not too far from their current facility on Mattlind Way.
“So the existing facility is on the market right now for sale," said the Food Bank’s director of external affairs Chad Robinson. "So we’ll be using the proceeds that we receive from the sale of that building to help offset the cost of the new building. And we are pleased with some early gifts that we’ve received for the construction and then we’ll obviously be pursuing a capital campaign for the remainder of the amount for building construction.”
Robinson says they’ve known for some time more space is needed there.
“Our current facility in Milford is approximately 16,500-square-feet, which we know is not enough space to adequately serve the folks of downstate Delaware.," he said.
Robinson says 50% of the Food Bank’s overall distribution is in Kent and Sussex Counties and the planned 34 million dollar, two story building will help meet that need.
“The new building will be about 67,000-square-feet located on 11-and-one-half-acres," he said. "It’ll include both the building, which will house our warehouse, space for our workforce development program; we’ll be bringing our L.O.G.I.C program that we have up in Newark, which is warehousing and logistics training. We’ll be bringing that to Milford.”
The new building will also have a cafe and healthy pantry center so the Food Bank can serve people directly, and a garden to provide fresh vegetables.
Construction is expected to be completed in Fall 2023.
