Canal District, Pullman St. pot retailers get planning approval
Photo | Zachary Comeau
The Botanist General Manager Chris Tolford and Acreage Holdings' Chief Marketing Office Harris Damashek at the company's Worcester dispensary.
Photo | Google
Diem Cannabis aims to open a cannabis retail store in this Grafton Street building.
The Worcester Planning Board has now signed off on three recreational cannabis retail stores in the city, after approving two more earlier this week.
Special permits for adult-use marijuana were given to the Botanist at 65 Pullman St. and Diem Cannabis at 74 Grafton St. The companies are the second and third retailers to be granted the permits after Good Chemistry, which is set to open its Harrison Street medical dispensary to recreational customers next week.
Both still must get their final licenses from the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission and the Worcester License Commission before they can open.
The Botanist, which opened in December for medical sales, is controlled by New York-based Acreage Holdings, one of the largest multi-state cannabis operators in the country.
The first month of sales at the recently constructed Botanist building will be considered a soft opening with limited retail hours and extra staff to mitigate traffic or customer issues, said Todd Rodman, attorney for Worcester law firm Seder & Chandler, who represents The Botanist.
The store expects to be open for recreational sales from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Monday through Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday. Rodman said the company has secured a combined 40 parking spaces between on-site parking and a nearby lot, but the company may first open on an appointment-only basis for recreational marijuana sales.
In addition to Worcester, The Botanist is hoping to open stores in Shrewsbury and Leominster. Product is currently grown in Sterling, but the company is proposing a 100,000-square-foot cultivation facility in Northbridge.
Oregon-based Diem Cannabis, via entity TDMA LLC, will join what Fletcher Tilton attorney Mark Donahue called the burgeoning Canal District in a previously vacant 4,600-square-foot building under the I-290 overpass.
There is plenty of nearby public parking to accommodate the store including the Union Station parking garage, on-street parking and other municipal lots, Donahue said.
According to a press release, the company began in August an expansion plan into Massachusetts, working to secure locations for retail stores in Worcester and Springfield. Cultivation and manufacturing facilities are proposed in Oregon.
The business would be the second marijuana retailer to open in the Canal District after Good Chemistry.
“We see this as a unique opportunity to reuse an underutilized industrial building,” Donahue said.
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