Medicine Man growing operation via medicinemandenver.com
As cartels and distilleries have known for some time, intoxicants are perennially profitable. Demand is high (no pun intended), production can be scaled. And until now, to sell a drug like marijuana you didn’t need a brick-and-mortar storefront, just a suitably empty parking lot.
But for states like Colorado and Washington, an experiment in government regulation is underway that looks to make some legitimate entrepreneurs legitimately rich.
The legal pot business is essentially an agricultural industry with a front-facing retail brand. Scaling production of pot requires large indoor cultivation and processing facilities, and distribution points need branded renovations to reflect a new, vibrant market.
To get a sense for the costs involved in becoming a Pot Baron, Buildzoom decided to dive deeper into some of the money being invested behind the scenes in construction and commercial development.
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Medicine Man
Aurora, CO
Street: 1901 S Havana St
Total Spent: $300,000
Medicine Man is one of the companies featured in MSNBC’s new documentary series “Pot Barons of Colorado.” Their second storefront in Aurora, CO is set to open before the end of 2014 and the price tag to remodel both its interior and exterior was a cool $300,000.
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New World Alternative Health Care
Jefferson, CO
Street: 400 Indian Lane
Total Spent: $1,046,894
New construction of a one story steel frame commercial greenhouse to grow marijuana. The location is remote from urban centers, which means that this is an example of pot production that is separated from the dispensary.
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Nature’s AZ Medicines
Phoenix, AZ
Street: 2439 West McDowell Rd
Total Spent: $764,400
Tenant improvements to convert an existing 14,000 sf storage area into a new marijuana cultivation facility. The main warehouse will be partitioned into growing rooms, new restrooms, and updated infrastructure. Warehouses are ideal for pot production because they allow growers to secure their crop from theft but also to carefully control the conditions under which the plants grow.
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Encanto Green Cross Dispensary
Phoenix, AZ
Street: 2620 W. Encanto Blvd
Total Spent: $241,411
Another conversion of storage space into a production facility and dispensary, with new walls, partitions, and infrastructure. This project will put production and distribution together in one location, which in some ways resembles the coffee roaster or bakery production models, but adds crucial elements of agricultural technology and climate control.
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Southern Colorado Medical Marijuana
Colorado Springs, CO
Street: 502 W Colorado Ave
Total Spent: $74,710
General remodeling project, including upgrades to electrical and HVAC. Colorado Springs has laws in force that restrict the sale of marijuana for recreational use (each municipality in Colorado can determine its own “home rules” that may contradict state laws) so this medical marijuana facility is not undergoing a massive overhaul. The scale of this renovation helps show how marijuana dispensaries are like other retail or service locations, such as restaurants or medical clinics.
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TLC Medical
Salem, OR
Street: 1895 Liberty St NE
Total Spent: $60,000
Conversion of a multi-family residential property into a medical marijuana dispensary. The legal version of selling drugs out of your home! This project required not only a reconfiguration of the space, but a “change of use” permit.
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Starbuds
Denver, CO
Street: 4690 N Brighton Blvd
Total Spent: $50,000
Another “Pot Barons” cast member Brian Rude owns Starbuds, which has undergone approximately $50,000 in renovation work since June 2013. This number is in line with other comparable business renovations (or even a bit lower), such as Starbucks coffee shops.
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The 64 Store
Colorado Springs, CO
Street: 502 West Colorado Ave
Total Spent: $49,123
Named after Colorado’s constitutional amendment 64 that legalized marijuana, the popular dispensary upgraded its plumbing, electrical, and HVAC. The relatively reasonable cost of this renovation represents the parity between pot, on the one hand, and coffee, food, and other commodities sold in retail spaces, on the other.
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Check out the BuildZoom permit map to see how much was spent on other marijuana-related construction projects.
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