Denver based medical marijuana company AmeriCann will be opening the country’s largest medical marijuana cultivation facility in Freetown, Massachusetts. They bought the land for $4,475,000 from Boston Beer Company and it is expected to cost $25 million for the first phase of construction.
The first phase will include a 130,000 square foot cultivation and processing area, with a separate 30,000 square foot research and development building. The entire facility is expected to be 1 million square feet, far bigger than the 100,000 square foot GFarmaLabs facility in Desert Hot Springs, California, which was previously the largest facility in the country.
The construction is expected to begin by March 2017 and be completed by October 2017 – there is speculation that the new law that went into effect Dec. 15th will speed things along even though the facility is for medical marijuana.
The state of Massachusetts has become one of the most progressive in the country when it comes to marijuana policy. In 2012, voters chose to legalize the use of medical marijuana – and even with the slow rollout of the program there are over 25,000 registered patients in the state.
Now, just four years later, they recently legalized the recreational use of cannabis during the 2016 election – and though they have delayed the deadline for the recreational industry to have shops up and running by six months, they are still working towards that goal.
The Massachusetts Medical Cannabis Center will be the largest facility in the nation – and will host Coastal Compassion as their tenant in the cultivation and processing area. If everything goes as planned, the massive facility will be about ready to harvest their first crops before the end of the year.
Along with the new facility in Massachusetts, AmeriCann is looking into developing locations in California, Pennsylvania and Florida – all of which have medical marijuana laws on the books, along with California’s new adult use laws. Seeing as any company looking to do business in multiple states cannot take the plant across state lines, it makes sense that they are looking to build locations in different states.
As more states move towards legalization we are likely to see more successful companies from states with established industries moving into other states across the U.S. – and in cases like this, even from one coast to the other. It’s the natural expansion of the industry, and this impressive soon-to-be facility is going to be a big benefit to Massachusetts’ medical marijuana industry.
