© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Tom Cusano is the owner of One Cabot Street in Holyoke, home to various marijuana related businesses. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
HOLYOKE — Damaris Aponte has a plan for Blossom Flower, her cannabis startup that she says will marry cultivation, manufacturing and delivery of product to retailers and customers.
But she needs more than a plan and her enthusiasm. She needs a place to do business equipped with ventilation, security and a sally port for the secure transfer of cannabis in and out of trucks and vans.
She’ll get it at the Riverside Mill, located at 1 Cabot St. in the Paper City’s manufacturing district down on the canals, which owner Thomas J. Cusano and building contractor Sweitzer Construction are transforming into a marijuana mall — or a cannabis co-working space. The goal is a building that will host a variety of cannabis businesses under one roof where they can share facilities and a sense of community.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS The rear of One Cabot Street in Holyoke, the home of various marijuana related companies. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
In addition to Aponte, tenants include Holyokers Isaias A. Rosario and Ezra R. Bleau, co-founders of Infused Element. Infused Elements is a business they are building around baked goods and beverages infused with rosin as opposed to distillate. Rosin cannabis extract is made without solvents, meaning it is chemical free.
Mill Town Agriculture has its marijuana-growing operation up and running already, making use of tanks installed for the papermaking process.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Pat Sweitzer, owner of Sweitzer Construction, talks with Aaron Vega, Holyoke’s Director of Planning & Economic Development, as they tour One Cabot Street in Holyoke, a building that will contain various marijuana related businesses. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
There is room for about eight tenants on the lower, half-basement level and first floor. There is a giant “event space” where the old paper machines once stood. A barrel-vaulted basement lies below it, now clean and pristine but built in the 19th century to take the weight of the machines above.
Rosario and Bleau agree with Aponte that they wouldn’t be able to get their business growing outside of a concept like the Riverside Mill. The reason is cost, according to the contractor on the $6 million rehab.
“The barriers to entry are too high,” said Michael Sweitzer of Sweitzer Construction.
Barriers like the state-required sally ports. Taking their name from features on medieval castles, sally ports are controlled entry points. Vehicles pull into an enclosure, gates close behind. Then, and only then, do the doors of the facility open.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Damaris Aponte and Ezra Bleau are both tenants of One Cabot Street in Holyoke, the home of various marijuana related businesses. She will be starting a marijuana delivery service and he is the co-founder of Infused Element that manufactures cannabis-infused food products. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
Cusano said what he’s doing in Holyoke, and hopes to do at other properties, is give a real opportunity to small business in an industry that talks about diversity and inclusion yet has big, multi-state players.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Pat Sweitzer is an owner of Sweitzer Construction, the general contractor for the One Cabot Street project in Holyoke. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
“Here, they can get their building together without spending millions of dollars,” he said.
And Holyoke, which famously rolled out the welcome mat for the marijuana industry, doesn’t always have room for them.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Aaron Vega is the Director of Planning and Economic Development for the City of Holyoke. He was touring renovations at One Cabot Street. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
The building, once part of National Blank Book and later Avery Dennison, once had 1,800 paper workers employed within.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Damaris Aponte in the space at One Cabot Street in Holyoke that will be the home of her new marijuana delivery service. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
“And probably there were 20 parking spaces for 1,800 people,” Cusano said. “Everyone walked. There aren’t spaces for sally ports in a lot of these old buildings.”
Cusano, 68, bought the 230,000-square-foot building from the city in 2018. The city had taken it for back taxes.
Already the owner of a mill redevelopment project in Rochester, New Hampshire, Cusano also bought the former mill of Southworth Co., at 36 Canal Rd. in the Turners Falls section of Montague, for $679,000 in 2019.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Tenants, and other stakeholders view the progress of renovations at One Cabot Street in Holyoke, home to various marijuana related businesses. This is the space that will house “Infused Element” a business that creates cannibis-infused food products. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
Cusano has plans to bring the marijuana industry into his properties in Turners Falls and New Hampshire and Holyoke,
“We have been talking for a couple years with different cannabis growers to take over that building in Turners,” he said. “But they haven’t had the money. Now where the market has crashed they definitely don’t have the money.”
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Michael Sweitzer is a project manager at Sweitzer Construction, the general contractor for the One Cabot Street project in Holyoke. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
“We are trying to get Holyke going first,” he said.
But the crash Cusano references is real. According to the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, an ounce of flower retails for an average of $201. It’s the lowest price recorded since the legal industry opened in 2018. A year ago, an ounce of flower cost $239.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Craig Sweitzer is the founder of Sweitzer Construction, the general contractor for the One Cabot Street project in Holyoke. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
Meanwhile, two area marijuana retailers have closed: Pleasantrees in Easthampton in January and The Source in Northampton a month earlier.
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS Ezra Bleau (left) and Isaias Rosario stand in the space at One Cabot Street in Holyoke that will be the home of their business “Infused Element”, that will produce and market cannabis-infused food products. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 3/2/2023
Retail recreational cannabis is still a $29-million-a-year industry in Massachusetts.
But is now a good time to build?
“I’ll let you know a year from now,” Cusano said. “What it required was a total shift in our approach to the market.”
It means thinking small.
“The people who are going to survive are going to be like the craft beer business,” he said. “They are the guys who are going to do well. Their overhead will be less.”
While the tenants can get outfitted for less money, Cusano said he is making an investment.
“When all is said and done, rehabbing half the building and the infrastructure of the entire building: $6 million.
“And that’s a lot of money,” he said. “It’s a lot of money to me. I grew up selling snow cones for a dime.”
© Don Treeger | dtreeger/masslive.com/TNS One Cabot St. in Holyoke, the home of various marijuana related businesses. (Dave Roback photo) 2023.
Sweitzer Construction — based in Monson with in-house carpenters and a network of about 100 architects, engineers, subcontractors – is busy in the canabis space, Michael said. The company also builds dental and medical offices, commercial spaces and branched out into cannabis a few years ago.
“Connecticut,” he said. “I’ve been asked to price out a lot of adult-use dispensaries in Connecticut.”
Connecticut is just now rolling out its adult-use industry.
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