Houston Food Bank A Step Closer To Its New, Gigantic Digs

Movin' on up, to the east side

​Hey, Houston -- you are about to be home to the largest food bank in the nation!!

Congratulations?

On the one hand, it's great that the Houston Food Bank will take over the old Sysco Foods warehouse on the Loop and have plenty of room. On the other hand, it'd be even better if, you know, there wasn't such a need for a huge food bank.

HFB will officially announce tomorrow that they have finalized the purchased of the old Sysco headquarters and are ready to begin a public fund-raising phase for renovating the 273,000 square-foot facility, a huge jump from their current 73,000-square foot home.
 
It will make HFB the owner of the largest food-bank facility in the country, officials say.

Sysco announced its plans to abandon the building for a new headquarters and sell it to the food bank in October 2007. Since then the charity has been seeking grant money and other government funds to finance the purchase and renovation.

The building had been assessed at $22 million at the time, but a final sale price has not been disclosed.

The ceremony Thursday will "mark completion of the private phase of the capital campaign to purchase and renovate the food bank's new home, and the start of the public phase," the food bank says.

The food bank, a network of more than 400 charities, feeds a total of 137,000 people each week and receives more than 46 million pounds of food and prepared meals annually.