Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

April 24, 2019

Cannabis grow and dispensary operations planned in Auburn

Courtesy / Malone Commercial Brokers Plans for 11.8 acres, at 1315 Minot Ave. in Auburn, include development of a strip mall that would include a recreational-use cannabis dispensary and testing lab.
By Laurie Schreiber

The developer of large greenhouses in Auburn for growing cannabis has bought additional land to build a dispensary and testing lab.

Plans for 11.8 acres at 1315 Minot Ave. in Auburn include development of a strip mall that would include a recreational-use cannabis dispensary and testing lab, and perhaps a coffee shop and additional retail space.

Clifford Miller purchased the parcel from  KJD Maine Co. LLC for $90,000. Cheri Bonawitz and Karen Rich of Malone Commercial Brokers represented the seller and Tim Dunham of Tim Dunham Realty represented the buyer. The transaction closed March 3.

Miller is a Lisbon native. He’s the founder and CEO of Millennial Equity LLC, which focuses on real estate investment in Maine and Florida. Until 2017, he was a “client partner,” providing client consultations, at Digital Risk, in Maitland Fla., which consults on mortgage and consumer lending.  He decided to return home to Maine with his family several years ago. In 2016, he was named to Mortgage Professional America Magazine’s "Young Guns" list, which recognizes “brightest under 35.”

In late 2017, he founded Atlantic Cannabis Collective, after voters approved the sale of recreational cannabis. 

Courtesy / Miller Family
Clifford Miller, CEO of Atlantic Cannabis Collective and a long-time real estate investor in Maine and Florida, has plans for cannabis cultivation on 10 acres across the street from his recently-purchased property at 1315 Minot Ave.

Cannabis greenhouses

The plan for 1315 Minot Ave. is connected to a cannabis-growing operation Miller has in development across the street on a 10-acre lease on a side street called Mystique Way. 

Miller is building two greenhouses of 4,000 and 12,000 square feet, as well as an extraction facility. It’s expected both greenhouses will be operational by mid-June. He holds a two-year lease with an option to buy, and plans to execute the purchase option in 2021. 

“The 10 acres is tucked behind other businesses and into the woods a little bit,” he noted. “You don’t see it from the road, you won’t smell it, it won’t bother anyone.”

The 10 acres is part of a larger 32-acre parcel, where a group of three businessmen from Portland are also planning a cannabis cultivation operation, he said. Miller said he’s been working with the group as a consultant and was selected as the spokesperson for the overall development.

Investment in the overall 32 acres has been $3.1 million to date, he said.

The focus for now is on medical cannabis. But the goal is to transition to adult recreational cannabis when the state finalizes rules — for things like seller licensing, background checks, fees, product testing and security — related to final passage in May 2018 of the Marijuana Legalization Act, which legalized the drug for adult recreational use. At that point, he said, he expects the adult-use recreational market to take off.

His five-year projection on recreational cannabis produced from his greenhouses alone, on the 10 acres, is over $100 million in revenue. 

“Based on everything we’ve seen, the day the lights turn on for recreational use, there’s going to be massive influx of demand,” he said. 

In the meantime,  the 11.8 acres at 1315 Minot Ave. struck him as an excellent opportunity to leverage the cultivation operation.

Like the cultivation operation, development at 1315 Minot Ave. hinges on passage of the state rules, he said.

“I’ll wait until the adult use rules come out, then I’ll go to the town with a development plan,” he said.

Even if the recreational market doesn’t take off, he said, 1315 Minot Ave. is still a great value with plenty of development upside.

 

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

0 Comments

Order a PDF