Cannabis Concourse

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]I[/dropcap]n Marshall, Michigan, at the Brooks Industrial Park, an enormous medical cannabis hub is beginning to materialize—and a company called Michigan Pure Meds is at the center of it.

In June 2017, the Marshall City Council approved cannabis cultivation and processing facilities, but decided to not allowing provisioning centers. Despite the absence of provisioning centers, the area is destined to become a busy hub for cannabis-related activities, given the large projects that are currently underway.

On Aug. 8, the Marshall City Planning Commission approved a plan to allow Michigan Pure Med to open a large facility that will function as a centerpiece. Per Marshall’s ordinance, facilities must be located a half-mile away from other cannabis facilities. Joe Jarvis, chief operations officer of Michigan Pure Med, said the company plans on taking a “pharmaceutical approach” to its business plan. According to Michigan Pure Med’s website, the company is vertically integrated and produces pharmaceutical-grade cannabis.

Michigan Pure Med cultivates and processes indica, sativa and hybrid varieties, converting them into pens, capsules and topicals that are designed to treat a wide range of illnesses. According to its website, the company operates eight provisioning centers across Michigan and cultivates cannabis in Detroit, Hazel Park and Lansing.

The Marshall facility will act as headquarters for the company with a central campus located on Old U.S. 27 South in the Brooks Industrial Park. The five-year project will grow to become 1.2 million square feet and employ at least 400 employees.

“. . . They are expecting, over the next five years, to have between 400 and 500 employees. We’re a town with an over 7,000 population, so that’s a lot of new jobs that will be created in our community.”

Now that the firm has local approval to operate, it needs to secure its license at the state level. “They are applying at the state of Michigan for their state operating license,” Marshall City Manager Tom Tarkiewicz told CULTURE. “Once they have received that from the state of Michigan, then they can actually start growing product. They’re going to move forward building their [facility] prior to even getting the license. They will be breaking ground here next month. But they can’t have any product until they receive their state license.”

The relatively close neighboring Branch County communities of Coldwater Township, Quincy Township and Union City have opted out and decided not to allow medical cannabis facilities. In Calhoun County, things also move at an equally glacial pace. Marshall is the first community in Calhoun County to take such an approach. Michigan Pure Med will be located next door to the Marshall Energy Center, and it will utilize two natural gas-powered plants that will together provide 1,000 megawatts.

When we asked Tarkiewicz whether or not he foresees an economic boom due to the new project, he answered affirmatively. “It will because they are expecting, over the next five years, to have between 400 and 500 employees,” he said. “We’re a town with an over 7,000 population, so that’s a lot of new jobs that will be created in our community.” Four-hundred or more employees make a huge impact on a small community.

Michigan Pure Med plans on opening more provisioning centers across southern Michigan. Construction on the facility in Marshall is scheduled to begin soon, and the complex will continue to grow into 2019. Marshall, if all things go as planned, could serve as a beacon for other Michigan communities that are sluggish to embrace commercial cannabis activity and that want to see proof of medical cannabis’ effect on the economy.