Large-scale marijuana grow facility planned for vacant Muskegon County business park

MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI – A 210-acre business park owned by Muskegon County may soon become a large-scale facility for growing marijuana.

The proposed grow operation, to be called Sensi Park, would be located in the vacant Muskegon County Business Park North in Dalton Township at the corner of Agard and Whitehall roads, according to county planning documents.

Representatives from db3, the company behind the project, recently submitted planning documents and a letter of intent to purchase the property from Muskegon County, according to documents provided to the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners.

The county board on Aug. 22 approved Wright’s letter of intent and agreed to sell the entire 19-parcel property for more than $746,000. County officials and db3 have 90 days to close the deal.

Muskegon medical marijuana district is sold out

The Muskegon City Commission approved the sale of the last two vacant lots in the city’s medical marijuana overlay district off Seaway Drive.

The business park was created a decade ago through a partnership between the city of Muskegon and Muskegon County. Infrastructure for the park was only half-completed before the project stalled out, said Muskegon City Manager Frank Peterson.

Documents show that db3 plans to initially build two cultivation centers totaling 650,000 square feet, or 15 acres, and a large administration facility. The plan is to lease facility space to marijuana growers like a mall rents out space to retailers, according to a news release issued by db3 on Tuesday, Aug. 27.

However, db3 has already chosen Wicked Root as its anchor tenant for the large-scale grow operation, according to the release.

Construction is expected to begin in late 2019 and finish in 2020. Overall, the project is expected to create up to 250 jobs with an average wage of $25 an hour with a potential $9.9 million economic impact, the release reads.

According to the agreement between db3 and the county, the company would purchase the business park for a total of $746,200. That includes the purchase of parcels 1-9, 14-18 and half of unit 19 for $523,200 and the remaining lots 10-13 and half of lot 19 for $223,000.

The latter lots are currently under an Environmental Protection Agency hold for long-term testing and may not be buildable for another five years, according to a project narrative submitted by db3.

The word sensi comes from the word Spanish word “sensimilla,” which means “no seeds,” and is also the name of a highly-potent strain of hybrid cannabis that does not produce seeds.

The company expects to build Sensi Park in several phases, but only the first phase is noted in planning documents submitted to the county.

The first phase of development would include:

– A 375,000-square-foot facility administration facility

– A 350,000-square-foot grow house

– A 300,000-square-foot grow house

Each building would be erected in the southwestern portion of the property with future development slated around the remaining parcels currently under EPA hold.

Based in Chicago, db3 is a real estate development company that focuses on erecting buildings for large-scale agricultural projects. The company chose Michigan because it is the state with the second-highest population of medical marijuana cardholders and because the state chose to allow the sale of recreational marijuana in 2018, according to db3′s news release.

Recreational marijuana will be legally available for retail sale starting in 2020.

“We’ve spoken to hundreds of growers to find out what they’d need in a facility,” said Stevan Bratic, new customer development manager with Sensi Park. “In many cases, entrepreneurs and business owners lack the capital and funds to expand their operations, and this model solves the problem. Affordable power is another factor, and our on-site power plant provides them with the infrastructure they need.”

The city of Muskegon last year opted into rules that allow it to sell land for the purpose of growing and selling medical marijuana. Dalton Township also opted in to allow the sale of medical marijuana.

The first medical marijuana dispensary in Muskegon, Park Place Provisionary, opened in July.

Muskegon’s first state-licensed medical pot shop open for business

A grand opening ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, June 21.

At the Aug. 22 meeting, board Chairwoman Susie Hughes and Commissioners Charles Nash, Rillastine Wilkins, Marcia Hovey-Wright, Bob Scolnik, Ken Mahoney and I. John Snider all voted in favor of the sale.

Vice Chairman Gary Foster and Commissioner Zach Lahring were opposed to the sale.

Snider and Mahoney both represent Dalton Township.

Lahring said he was against selling the property because it could, in his belief, be a detriment to public health and safety. Lahring also noted that the parcel owned by Dalton Township is in a residential area and that the entire business park is located near several homes.

Foster voiced similar concerns, saying it would buck a resolution against the growth and sale of recreational marijuana passed by the county board in 2017.

Nash said that was little more than a symbolic resolution to voice the board’s opposition to the ballot measure that legalized the recreational use of marijuana in Michigan.

The county board also signed off on two key agreements that would make the pot park a reality. One agreement gives Dalton Township Supervisor Tony Barnes the green light to sell a former mobile home park to db3, which sits at the northwest end of the business park.

The other agreement amended a decade-old deal forged between Muskegon County and the city of Muskegon when they developed the park in the late 2000s. While the business park is technically located in Dalton Township, it was once owned by the city of Muskegon and remains under its taxing jurisdiction, Peterson said.