ATHOL — Another recreational marijuana dispensary, Blue Jay Botanicals LLC, is looking to open shop in a former used car lot on the corner of Chestnut Hill Avenue and Main Street, next to the L.P. Athol Corporation building.
“Athol is a very receptive community to having the cannabis industry here,” said Cindy Hartwell, a prospective owner of Blue Jay Botanicals and New Salem resident. “It’s a new industry. It will bring jobs and revenue to town.”
The large-scale cannabis cultivator Mass Grow LLC is looking to purchase the 22 Chestnut Hill Ave. property to facilitate the opening of a new dispensary. Hartwell is the daughter of former LP Athol Corporation building owner Vincent “Bill” Purple, who recently sold the neighboring building complex to Mass Grow. Mass Grow would rent the neighboring three-story building to Blue Jay Botanicals while also making use of the 2-acre parking lot.
“This isn’t what we expected to be doing in retirement, but we’re excited to see how it goes,” Hartwell said.
Hartwell said she and her husband’s business will partner with Mass Grow using the neighboring cultivation facility as their primary distributor. Robert and Sheila Hamilton currently own the property where Victory Lane Motors still sells and services some used cars, although the business has scaled down considerably in recent years. Any current tenants of the Hamiltons living in the existing apartments or retail space would have to relocate.
“Mass Grow will be Blue Jay’s landlord and also we fully expect them to be a significant supplier of product to the Blue Jay store,” Hartwell said. The companies have not yet worked out a specific supply agreement.
Blue Jay Botanicals would sell a wide array of products manufactured at the Mass Grow facility: marijuana, edibles, oils and other hemp-based products. Plans include renovating all three floors of the building, each about 2,000 square feet in size. The retail marijuana shop would occupy first floor, office spaces on the second, and a “community space” on the third. The flexible third floor venue would be used as a general event space for meetings, fundraisers and other events.
“I think it is really the optimal use of this space,” Hartwell said.
Traffic congestion around the intersection of Chestnut Hill Avenue and Main Street were the primary concerns shared by Athol residents at a Dec. 5 Planning Board public hearing. According to MassDOT figures shared at the meeting, about 3,700 cars pass by the intersection every day, which is especially busy during rush hour.
“If you want economic development in town you’re going to have traffic,” Hartwell said.
Per the state’s requirement, the Hartwells have already held a community outreach meeting, are preparing the host community agreement and plan on submitting the license application to the Cannabis Control Commission by mid-January.
According to the project application, the interior of the Blue Jay shop would be laid out as to accommodate “high volume customer counts while protecting consumer privacy” and employ approximately 25 full and part-time employees. No cost estimates for the renovations are available at this time.
The Mass Grow cultivation facility, located next to the prospective Blue Jay store, is posed to be the second largest in town after the L.S. Starrett Company. Between $18 and $20 million in renovations and construction are planned for the 360,000-square-foot complex.
In the first two weeks of recreational cannabis sales in Northampton and Leicester, over $7 million in marijuana and related products were sold. Hartwell said that so far Athol has been a very receptive community to the cannabis industry, which is valued at $7 billion annually and growing, NPR reports.
In March, the first recreational cannabis dispensary in Athol, Elev8 Cannabis, will open across the street from the post office in downtown. Another recreational marijuana cultivation and processing company, 1620 Labs LLC, has received a special permit from the town to renovate the former Agway building on Exchange Street, too.
The next Planning Board public hearing on the Blue Jay Botanicals shop will continue on Jan. 2 at 7:50 p.m. in the in Town Hall.
Sarah Robertson can be reached at srobertson@atholdailynews.com.