A medical cannabis cultivation facility in Cathedral City is expected to create 140 full-time jobs, with an average wage of $22 per hour, when it is fully operational.
“This is a brand new state-of-the-art facility that will highlight Cathedral City’s leadership role in California in cannabis,” said Cathedral City Mayor Pro Tem Greg Pettis.
Ground is expected to be broken before the end of the year near the intersection of Ramon Road and Date Palm Drive.
When completed, it is estimated to generate $5 million to $8 annually in taxes, Pettis said.
Cathedral City is the latest city to want a piece of the ever-popular medical cannabis market. A report by Grand View Research, Inc., projects that the global medical cannabis market will reach a value of $55.8 billion by 2025. The United States is a major market for the new growing industry. By the end of 2016, 28 states now have laws and regulation in place to legally buy and sell medical cannabis.
About 20 acres of land will to construct Sunrise Campus, a large-scale purpose-built Good Manufacturing Processes (GMP) greenhouse for the cultivation of medical cannabis.
“We are entering the California market with plans for a remarkably efficient and large-scale facility – one that will benefit from California’s abundant natural sunlight to deliver low-cost, high-quality medical products at scale,” said Dr. Anthony Holler, CEO of Sunniva, a Canadian-based company that is building the facility. “The award of these licenses and additional acreage puts in place the essential elements for us to move forward with Sunrise Campus as we envision it.”
His remarks were included in a news release.
Sunrise Campus will be constructed in two phases. Phase I, which is expected to break ground yet this year, is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2018. The company plans to break ground on Phase 2 of the facility in late 2018. Sunrise Campus Phase I is expected to produce more than 81,000 kg of dried cannabis per year.
When complete, Phase II should add 45,000 kg of dried cannabis to the facility’s annual production. Sunniva plans to dedicate more than half of its California production to oils, extracts and other derivatives.
“Sunrise Campus will be a GMP compliant facility, deploying the latest in technology and automation,” said Holler said in a prepared statement. “Good Manufacturing Processes (GMP) are practices required in order to conform to the guidelines recommended by agencies that control authorization and licensing for manufacture and sale of food and drug products, and active pharmaceutical products.”
Desert Hot Springs and Coachella announced earlier this year that they, too, are welcoming medical cannabis cultivation facilities to their respective communities.
