Payto Architects has been fortunate to work with the Hattie Larlham Foundation, which provides services to adults and children with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. As part of their vocation program, Hattie has begun to provide safe work environments for persons with disabilities where they can learn valuable and rewarding career skills, all while providing a service to their communities. In early 2014 Hattie Larlham received a $250,000 State of Ohio Grant to create a center for urban farming in the Akron community. The grant kick started a Vision by Hattie Larlham not only to create a processing facility for their urban farms, but feature an education center to host cooking demonstrations and nutrition education classes for consumers and residents on healthy eating and cooking.

 

Payto Architects worked with Hattie Larlham to transform this vision from ideas to reality by helping develop a building program and applying it to reality in design concepts and rendering. Payto assisted Hattie Larlham in fund raising efforts turning the initial $250,000 grant into $1,300,00. The Food Hub was developed on a .8743 acre parcel of land, located at the juncture of Cedarwood Sq., Douglas, and Cedar Street in Akron.

 

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                This project is LEED Certified