Month: May 2022
Cannabis Facility Construction Expands into West Virginia with Design-Build Projects for Harvest Care Medical
By renovating former banks and drive-thru restaurants, dispensaries will be drive-thru ready
CHICAGO, IL (MAY 9, 2022) – Cannabis Facility Construction (CFC), a national, full-service, cannabis design-build construction firm, is pleased to complete construction on a new Country Grown Cannabis medical dispensary for Harvest Care Medical in West Virginia. CFC is currently working on multiple design-build projects for Harvest Care. This Martinsburg location is a former bank building, making its existing drive-thru a logical choice for renovation to support customer demand for online ordering and speed of service once dispensary drive-thrus are permitted by cannabis regulations.
“We’re thrilled to enter the West Virginia cannabis market and partner with Harvest Care to support their entry into the emerging medical cannabis market,” said Andy Poticha, Founder and CEO at Cannabis Facility Construction. “Our clients value our longstanding cannabis design-build expertise and our ability to provide speed to market, which is essential to opening quickly and correctly.”
The new 2,650-square-foot Country Grown Cannabis medical dispensary is located at 1321 Edwin Miller Blvd in Martinsburg, WV in a former bank facility. The dispensary was designed to create a differentiated and welcoming customer experience with careful consideration given to ensure customer flow, easy-to-browse product displays and point of sale stations for speed of service and retail convenience. In addition to the retail space up front, the dispensary includes private consultation rooms for medical patients to discuss their needs with staff, secure vaults for inventory storage, back-office space, and a highly-advanced security system.
“Cannabis Facility Construction was a strategic design-build choice for us,” said Kevin Gibbs, Senior Vice President of Operations at Harvest Care Medical and Co-Founder of Merida Capital Holdings, a leading private equity fund in the medical cannabis space. “CFC’s extensive experience has positively supported our business and will allow us to efficiently start serving customers all across West Virginia in the near future.”
Cannabis Facility Construction has renovated, and is in the process of renovating, four Country Grown Cannabis dispensaries for Harvest Care Medical in West Virginia, including Martinsburg, Charles Town, Fairmont and Huntington.
Cannabis Facility Construction Lends Insight and Expertise at 4/20 Event
4/20 was an amazing day to celebrate the cannabis industry at the Bisnow National Cannabis Real Estate Summit in Chicago.
Cannabis Facility Construction‘s Founder and CEO Andrew Poticha was a part of an informative panel discussing “The Business Of Cannabis: An Analysis of The Green Behind the Grass,” a state-by-state compare and contrast on investment, technology, and more!
And, you can listen to the audio recording here:
You can watch a video of the event HERE
Here are a few key insights Andy shared at the event:
“Experience is key. You don’t have to break the bank on the costs to build your facility if you think through the experience that you want your client to have in the space. You can be creative with paint and lighting.”
“As more states become adult use, the security aspect is becoming more like a bank experience where there are guards and there are cameras, but they are discreet and don’t interrupt the client experience.”
“When it comes to green design, such as low carbon footprint, it can be as costly because cannabis facilities are dependent on such large amounts of resources like electricity and water. Where we can make a difference is by using efficient components and resources so that we use less. One of the things that is going to come up is using GMP, good manufacturing practice, which will be important going forward.”
“Our function as designers is to get inside our clients’ heads and articulate for them that which they can’t do themselves by asking the right questions and probing the operations discussions that generate the design. Client experience and operation is critical for not only dispensary but also cultivation. You really need to listen to your cultivation team when it comes to their recommendation on operations and be able to scale up or down depending of your cultivation facility.”
“Soon we may see people in consumption lounges sipping on an infused beverage just like you might enjoy a good Scotch. We should all be thinking about what the experience should be in those spaces, and we simply don’t know the answer to that yet.”
“Keep your eye on HVAC no matter what you are considering in your cultivation facilities. The plant is so sensitive that even one degree of temperature and 1% of humidity variation can affect the quality of the harvest. You have to get your HVAC strategy right, and keep your eye on the final product.”
(From left: Ira Singer, Andy Poticha, Margy Sweeney, Morgan Sweeney, Joe Donnelly, Conah Targett-Jones)