Rooftop micro farm on downtown Wichita bank parking garage suddenly shuts down
At the end of May, the owner of the urban garden on the rooftop of Fidelity Bank’s new parking garage was excitedly planning for the project’s future.
Leah Dannar-Garcia, 65, was about to open the microfarm on Market between Waterman and English — named Rise Farms — to the public for the first time as part of a one-day Herb Fest that would allow people to see all 15,000 square feet of the operation and its rows and rows of raised beds sprouting with asparagus, strawberries, pears, cabbage, carrots, beets, turnips, herbs and lettuce.
Her plans for the near future, she said, included adding you-pick programs at the farm, growing the roster of local restaurants that purchased its fresh veggies, and making her produce more available to local buyers through her online Food Hub.
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Now, less than three months later, the rooftop farm is closed. So is Dannar-Garcia’s other business — Firefly Farm at 15615 E. 21st St., which she’d run as a commercial farm since 2015. The online Food Hub also has ceased operation.
This week, Dannar-Garcia said that she recently decided that it was time to retire from farming. Not only is she dealing with back problems that will likely require surgery, but she also has decided she wants to slow down and enjoy life with her husband, Ron Garcia, who is 78,
“I’ve probably had it in the back of my mind for the last year or so,” she said, “but when you spend all this time and energy to create something wonderful, it’s very hard to let it go.”
Final growing season
Fidelity Bank, which announced in February of 2021 that it was adding a rooftop micro farm to its just-finished parking garage, owns the farm’s infrastructure, but Dannar-Garcia owned the farm.
Fidelity brought her on to run the project, billed as one of the largest urban micro farms in the Midwest, and she developed the specialized expertise it took to make it work.
Melissa Knoeber, the bank’s director of culture and talent, said that the bank’s staff will tend to the garden’s remaining crops during the farm’s final growing season. Bank officials are not sure yet what will become of the rooftop space, but the 204-panel solar farm that was part of the Rise Farms project will remain in place and will continue to serve as the primary power source for the parking garage and the retail and restaurant tenants on its main floor, Knoeber said.
The bank supports Dannar-Garcia’s decision to scale back her business in preparation for her retirement from farming, Knoeber said.
“Rise Farms holds a special place in our hearts as one of the original Rise Car Park tenants,” she said. “Leah and her team brought an innovative approach to strengthening our local food ecosystem.”
Dannar-Garcia said another factor that contributed to her decision to retire was the hit her business took when two of her big clients —Maize High School and the Kansas Food Bank — lost big USDA grants that they previously used to purchase fresh produce from her farms.
She said she’s planning an October auction of the tools and other farm implements she owns at Rise Farms.
She’d like to find a buyer for Firefly Farm, a 5-acre vintage farmstead that’s known for its heirloom tomatoes and fruit orchards, she said. Dannar-Garcia has been growing crops and hosting farmers markets and farm-to-table dinners at Firefly Farm for the past 10 years.
If she doesn’t find a buyer, she said, she’ll hold an auction there as well.
Dannar-Garcia, who was raised in Wichita, started her career as a teacher but became interested in gardening after she married Ron Garcia, whose family owned the farmstead where Firefly Farm sits. Eventually, she was growing so much excess produce, she began selling it to local restaurants.
Over the last decade, she’s been one of the most prolific providers of locally-grown produce to restaurants who specialize in farm-to-table fare. Her client list included around 30 local restaurants, including Lotte, which operates on the main floor of the Rise Car Park.
She said she’s confident in her decision to step back from farming and its demands on her body and her time. But that doesn’t mean doing so has been easy.
“It’s sad to see it all go away,” she said. “But you know the ebbs and flows of life. So we’ll see what the next thing is.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2025 at 2:49 PM.
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