A San Diego real estate investment trust serving the cannabis industry has bought a sprawling Athol pot-growing facility at the former site of the Union Twist Drill Co. for nearly $27 million.
The firm, Innovative Industrial Properties, was founded in 2016 as what it says is the first publicly traded firm on the New York Stock Exchange to provide real estate capital to the medical-use cannabis industry. The site is used by Ascend Wellness Holdings, a company saying it has retail sites planned for Boston and Cambridge.
The property, at 134 Chestnut Hill Ave., was the long-time home of Union Twist Drill Co. It was largely vacant for three decades before its conversion into a cannabis cultivation facility. It has 200,000 leased square feet, according to Innovative Industrial Properties. The new sale closed April 3.
Innovative Industrial Properties bought the Athol site less than two years after Ascend Athol RE LLC bought the site for $1.2 million. Ascend Athol is registered to Frank Perullo, the CEO of the cannabis consulting firm Novus Group.
The buyers, who also operate under the name MassGrow, said in 2018 they planned $20 million in renovations to the facility, with as many as 150 employees working there once it was operational.Â
Innovative Industrial Properties’ portfolio includes a 58,000-square-foot cannabis facility in Holliston for PharmaCann.
The nearly nine-acre site was last assessed by the Town of Athol at nearly $1.1 million.
