WHATELY — Two Boston men interested in starting a marijuana farm at 62 Christian Lane have begun discussions with the Selectboard.
Nicholas Spagnola and Julius Sokol of Bloom Market Garden Inc. said they were granted a special permit on Aug. 16 to have a medical marijuana business in Ipswich and recently met with the Selectboard to explain what they envision for Whately. Spagnola said they signed an option to purchase the Whately property in May and have since vetted the property.
“We’ve talked to a number of operators who are interested in coming on board with us, to just run the farm and run the cultivation operation with us. That site will serve a few dispensaries – some that we’re permitting ourselves and some that are in play right now,” Spagnola said at a recent meeting. “The farm itself, it’s an interesting operation … It’s doing good business. It’s a pretty large-scale operation.”
He said the property has historically grown basil and it will be retrofitted to grow marijuana.
Sokol said he and Spagnola want to have a community host agreement in place before scheduling an obligatory community outreach meeting. The two men are from East Boston.
Spagnola said the plan is to include a solar power set-up. He said it is a 40-acre property, with 163,000 square feet of greenhouse and about 2 acres of solar power. Sokol said solar allows him and his partner to maintain a green enterprise.
“It’s a fantastic property for this type of operation, and I think it will do well,” Spagnola said, adding that there will be no retail at the site.
Spagnola said cultivation will be done indoors, though the possibility of outdoor growing may be explored in the future.
Selectboard Chairman Jonathan Edwards said safety and responsibility are crucial because the land is close to the road, where school buses drive by a couple of times each day, and the greenhouses are visible from the road.
“The educational piece is a pretty important piece for a variety of reasons that I don’t have to explain to many people,” Edwards said.