AURORA | Chris Woods is taking the concept of “seed to sale” very literally.
Woods is the owner and founder of Terrapin Care Station, a medicinal and recreational marijuana chain with multiple locations in Boulder and, as of March, Aurora.
The city awarded Terrapin two licenses last year, one in Ward II and another in Ward III, as a part of its unique business license distribution system for recreational marijuana shops. Terrapin has been operating with the first of its two licenses at 11091 E. Mississippi Ave. since Oct. 23, 2014 and is tentatively slated to open the retail portion of its second Aurora location at the corner of Peoria Street and East 33rd Avenue on June 22.
Although cash registers won’t ring for two more months, Woods’ team is more than a month into production at Terrapin’s 20,0000-square-foot facility at 11900 E. 33rd Ave. The $1.2 million Terrapin operation is the first dual retail and grow center in Aurora. The facility has been producing hundreds of cannabis plants since late March and is preparing them for sale just a few dozen feet away in the adjoining 3,000-square-foot retail shop.
“From an efficiency standpoint, the fact that we cultivate in the same location where we sell (marijuana), has helped us cut transportation costs, definitely,” Woods said. “And now, we’re able to keep our production local to the city of Aurora.”
The new Terrapin facility is one of only two grow houses in Aurora and the city’s only facility with both retail and grow infrastructure under one roof, according to Robin Peterson, manager of the Aurora Marijuana Enforcement Division.
Woods said he was able to get a jump on combining his facilities before anyone else in the city by keeping a close eye on the Aurora market leading up to and immediately following the city’s decision to allow recreational marijuana in 2012.
“We went under contract with this building (11900 E. 33rd Ave.) in March of last year and at that time people were finding out this was going to be legal, so we acted quickly and were able to get ahead of the curve,” he said.
Though decidedly novel in Aurora, combining operations in order to cut down on costs is typical in other Colorado municipalities where recreational pot is legal, according to Peterson.
“That’s pretty common,” she said. “You could have all three in one space with retail, a grow, and a manufacturing infused products site, as long as you have a separate license for both. You just can’t have a testing facility in there if you have all three operations.”
However, Peterson said that the lack of retail licenses awarded by the city is what is precluding other marijuana suppliers from combining operations and forming in Aurora. She said other firms applied to amalgamate facilities such as Terrapin’s, but couldn’t because they didn’t receive a retail license from the city’s point-based system. To date, Aurora has doled out 23 recreational marijuana licenses across its six council wards and 11 shops have officially opened in the city.
“A lot of marijuana businesses don’t have the space to be able to do something like what Terrapin is doing,” said Tim Gonerka, retail specialist for the city. “The fact that they have a little more room maybe is because they were a little more forward thinking.”
Woods said he already has plans to add a greenhouse to the three-acre lot on which Terrapin’s Aurora grow facility lies. He said he expects that project to be completed in about 12-18 months.
In the meantime, Woods said he plans on running bi-daily tours of the new grow facility upon its opening in June, depending on popularity.
“People who live in Aurora have never seen grow operations, so its something we want to share with the general public in terms of the logistics, infrastructure and general hard work that goes into creating a clean, regulated product,” he said. “Initially we want to just test it out and we’re not planning on charging for it, but based on demand, we might consider charging a nominal fee.”