Geographic Assessment.

Working farms, small towns, and regional markets sit close together, but the corridor still lacks one dependable public place where local food, prepared meals, and practical learning meet. Corridor-specific agricultural output, food-access, and customer-catchment figures still need to be sourced before this case is used for fundraising.

Nearby college, extension, school, and workforce-training relationships need to be mapped through direct conversations. No institutional teaching partner is confirmed.

This is the chosen geography because it is the setting for the full Rootstock system. McMinnville is the proposed public anchor; growers and other sites can extend north toward Banks. The site, demand, rent, supply, partner, and funding assumptions remain to be validated locally.

McMinnville gives Groundworks a recognizable town center for the café, farm stand, teaching kitchen, and public programs. A specific property has not been selected.

The education program can host growers, cooks, educators, and neighbors. Local institutional partners and the demand for each program format still need to be confirmed.

Search in McMinnville first. Require accessible street presence, loading access, workable food-service zoning, and a lease that can support a mission tenant. Do not sign until rent, buildout, permits, and foot traffic are verified.

The land and growers between McMinnville and Banks form the supply and stewardship side of the system. Three Field Commons may hold multiple sites, while Foothold handles property operations and farm management where contracted.

Programming should move in both directions: corridor growers teach at Groundworks, and field-based classes take residents to working sites when partners and access are confirmed.

These sites are not substitutes for the McMinnville public anchor. They are the production, stewardship, and possible future-node side of the same corridor system.

The local case needs sourced figures for agricultural production, food access, household demand, visitor traffic, commercial rents, and the size of the practical customer catchment.

The partner map needs named, willing organizations rather than assumed relationships. College, extension, school, workforce, and grower partners remain unconfirmed.

The corridor choice is settled for this concept. The evidence behind the site, market, permitting, and funding plan is not. Those questions are the next work, not reasons to borrow figures from another region.