[Source: Nicole McGregor, 12 News Today] — These days anything one can do to make a buck, is a good thing, right? That’s exactly why Malcolm Marr and German Hernandez decided to start their own fish farm… at the bottom of a 1923 building in downtown Phoenix.
To understand how they got there, let’s stroll down memory lane a bit. The building, long ago was the home of a printing business called Imperial Lithographics. Owned by Marr’s wife’s family for more than 40 years, the business was then sold until those tenants vacated it several years later. And so the 70,000 square foot building at the corner of 4th Avenue and Madison sat. He wanted to turn the real estate into something spectacular but when the market took a dive he decided it wasn’t the time. So he rented out some of the space, even put a snack bar in it to accommodate some of the employees across the street who work at the jail.
And then one of his tenants, Hernandez, brought him an idea. Hernandez’ father started a fish farm in Mexico a couple years ago and liked it. With little overhead he had a thriving business. So Hernandez did more research and found the United States liked Tilapia and the hardy fish was paying off. In 2005, the U-S imported $350 million of the little guys. So Hernandez and Marr decided to take a chance. [Note: Read the full article and watch the video segment at A fish farm in downtown Phoenix? Apparently roe.]
Downtown Voices Coalition 