ORANGE — A second pot company is coming to Orange.
Fidelity Wellness Center Inc. received a letter of non-opposition and a host community agreement from the Selectboard, which voted unanimously to approve the letters this week.
Unlike Silver Therapeutics, which plans to open a marijuana dispensary on South Main Street, Fidelity Wellness Center does not plan on selling marijuana in town. The company has a purchase agreement for Lot 9 at the Randall Pond Industrial Park off R.W. Moore Drive, where it intends to build a 70,000-square-foot greenhouse to grow and cultivate marijuana.
The marijuana will have to be distributed elsewhere for sales, unless the company decides it wants to build a dispensary, as well. For now, Fidelity Wellness only has approval for a cultivation facility.
Fidelity Wellness President Mario Chiuccariello previously visited the Selectboard to describe the envisioned building, which will be a “hybrid greenhouse” employing artificial lighting and natural sunlight.
The building will have a thick, clear polycarbonate roof, while the rest of the building will look like any other industrial building, said Fidelity Wellness consultant Steve Chase.
“I know the term ‘greenhouse’ gets people concerned thinking ‘old-school hoop greenhouses with a plastic tarp covering it,’” Chase said. “With this building, the only thing greenhouse about it is the roof.”
The main question the Selectboard had for Fidelity Wellness when the company first came before it on June 13 was “Why?”
“Why? Why would we want this?” Selectboard Chairman Ryan Mailloux asked. “There seems to be a lot of benefit for you.”
Chase said the company will “supplement the tax base here with a multi-million-dollar facility.”
He also said the facility could create local jobs, and will start with about 20 employees.
“We are going to hire as much as we can from local residents. We’re going to hire initially the Orange residents, and then for contractors, we’re going to reach out to the local contractors, too,” Chase said.
Although it does not yet have a license to sell recreational — or “adult-use” — marijuana, Fidelity Wellness plans on growing both recreational and medical marijuana, eventually. Without the recreational-sales license, the company can only grow medical marijuana initially.
Chase admitted there are unanswered legal questions regarding recreational marijuana sales: There are no recreational marijuana facilities in Massachusetts, despite it being legal. The product is still illegal federally.
Chase added that the government has been more lenient regarding states’ marijuana laws, and if there’s a crackdown, “I don’t think they’re going to start with Orange.”
The project will cost around $7 to $8 million, according to Chief Financial Officer Ricardo Vega, and will take about six months to build.
“Our idea is to get started as soon as possible,” said Vega, adding he hopes to have the facility up and running in the first quarter of next year.