MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — On Thursday morning, Governor Brian Kemp was in town to tour the new Parham Kitchen, a project that will create hundreds of jobs for Central Georgians.
"We need to continue to look into repurposing old facilities like these and create new jobs," Kemp said.
For the last three years, Food Service Partners and the Central State Hospital Local Redevelopment Authority worked to renovate the old Parham Kitchen located at 620 Broad Street.
Now, they are in the process opening.
"We're concentrating very heavily on Georgia products, Georgia agriculture, so we're going to have a full vegetable processing operation, vegetable and fruit processing operation as part of the kitchen," Food Service Partners CEO Angelo Bizzarro said.
Parham Kitchen at Renaissance Park is a three phase project. It will eventually create hundreds of jobs in Baldwin County.
"When we reach full capacity, we'll reach somewhere north of 200 employees," Bizzarro said.
Mike Couch with the Redevelopment Authority says this 123,000 square foot space is just one of the projects they are working on to bring life back to the old Central State Hospital campus.
"This is an anchor tenant in a mall. This will grow because of agriculture being our biggest industry in the state, so this is exciting for the Development Authority," he said.
Food Service Partners says they hope to fill about 75 to 100 of those positions by the end of 2020.
The Redevelopment Authority says there is no timeline for finishing the next two phases.
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