Important Technical Considerations Before Starting a New Cannabis Cultivation Facility

Cannabis has been grown for thousands of years for human consumption. With the modern adoption of pro-cannabis policies in the United States and elsewhere, technological advances are evolving and improving the way commercial cannabis is cultivated. In more than half of the United States, businesses are sprouting up to cultivate cannabis for recreational and medical consumers. Much different than the “grow op” of a decade ago, commercial cultivation now employs thousands of people countrywide, pays millions in excise taxes, and is fertile ground for new business ventures to take root.

Anyone considering a new cannabis project must consider many factors, including site procurement, zoning issues, cultivation methods and practices, and acquiring all the specialized equipment necessary to support the cultivation of high-value plants indoors. Many growers are unprepared for the realities of building a commercial indoor facility, having only had access to space and the capital to cultivate in a garage or small warehouse. The scale of a modern cultivation facility can be daunting, typically occupying twenty thousand square feet or more, incorporating a handful of disparate technologies, and needing multiple trades to complete. Rather than go it alone, many new entrants to the market elect to hire construction consultants well versed in this type of project. These pioneering companies have made it their business to grow yours; two of the most innovative ones are Plan C Design from Los Angeles, California, and Critical Climate in Monrovia, California.

Since 2016, Plan C Design has been innovating the construction of indoor cultivation systems. Having indelibly changed the way the top operators build when they conceptualized and started Canna Panels, a company responsible for the now widely adopted standard of using insulated metal panels for indoor growing rooms, Plan C is well-practiced. Owned and operated by Bryan Mitchell, a well-known “garden rescue” consultant in Southern California, Plan C has built some of the largest and most sophisticated indoor agriculture systems ever constructed. Credited with building New England's largest cultivation facility, the 100,000 square foot Happy Valley complex in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Plan C has traveled widely, being called on to build gardens using their first-hand commercial cultivation knowledge. They have also built locally for some of the top brands, including Dosist, Stiizy, Loudpack, 710 Labs, The Russian Assassin Boys, and others almost too numerous to list.

Complementary to the grow room construction efforts of Plan C is a firm that is innovating the way cultivators manage and manipulate their environments for the best results. Critical Climate, through its subsidiaries, Thrive Controls, Elevate Mechanical, and Canna Flow, has worked alongside Plan C, making a name for itself as the leading air conditioning company for indoor cultivation. Owned and operated by Markus Kashinsky, Critical Climate has been building specialized air conditioning systems since 2012. Constantly innovating, they recently changed how vertical growers manage air circulation with the introduction of their Canna Flow laminar airflow systems. The team at Critical Climate is the insider's go-to company for air conditioning for commercial-scale cannabis projects.

Building a Commercial Cannabis Grow Room:

In the highly complex and regulated industry of cannabis, operators need to create a stable, controllable growing environment, secured and safe indoors. There is nothing simple about designing and building an indoor agricultural operation, and the problems for operations that are ill-prepared for the challenges are expensive and plentiful. Below is a brief breakdown from Bryan at Plan C Design about the most important steps to consider when starting a new cultivation business.

Finding a property for a cannabis cultivation operation is more difficult than you might think in the current state of empty commercial spaces and down-turning business cycles.

Firstly, traditional business lending is nearly impossible to obtain. Because cannabis is still considered a federally illegal substance, banks and lenders simply don't want to risk working with the industry. Instead, predatory, high-interest loans are the only funding option unless your team can package and present your plan in a way that will catch the eye of the small group of venture capital firms directly financing cannabis business.

Secondly, many real estate owners will not lease cannabis businesses, having been burned in the past by a deceptive tenant that ransacked their properties during the operation of unlicensed cannabis grow. Working with a cannabis-specific realtor can help you locate available properties that are willing to work with cannabis companies and help you avoid being overcharged for space. Regardless, plan to pay more per square foot than your next-door neighbor running a CrossFit gym and juice bar. Property owners that will lease to cannabis operations have been saturated with potential tenants in some parts of the country (looking at you, Los Angeles) and have been accustomed to getting double the going rate to look the other way. The new legalization push nationwide has tamped this trend slightly, as the perceived costs of renting to a company planning to cultivate indoors no longer includes legal fees defending from overzealous District Attorneys or the costs of cleanup when a fly by night operator trashes the place, leaving remnants of their interior modifications behind.

Finally, locating your facility in the proper zoning is critical. Check with local zoning offices to determine if your property is zoned correctly for an indoor agriculture operation, or more specifically, cannabis. If not, you may need to work with local authorities to get the property rezoned, or you may be forced to look for another location. Using a good Architect who knows the area can be the first step towards success, as they typically will coordinate property surveys and zoning meetings. If possible, use an Architect who knows how to design a grow or is familiar with the processes being undertaken inside an indoor grow. According to Bryan Mitchell from Plan C Design, the optimal architectural team is open to collaboration, especially in the newly opened markets where no local assets have been through the process before. If you find yourself planning a project, Plan C, and a handful of companies like them can coordinate the facility's design with the Architect to develop a plan that incorporates industry best practices and techniques, getting you a leg up on the local competition.

Once you have a building, you must decide exactly how you want to grow your crop. The cultivation method you choose will determine the equipment and supplies you'll need to get your operation up and running. Here are the four most popular types of indoor cannabis grow methods being built by Plan C Design:

•   Soil – (Skill Level) Beginner: As the name suggests, plants are grown most closely to Mother Nature's design in soil, typically in pots or beds, resting on trays needed to catch water running off during heavy feedings. This method is the least complicated of all types and is a good starting point for beginner growers, although it is typically not used for large-scale commercial cultivation. Soil growing comes with various risks due to the constant importing of replacement soil, most detrimental of which are insects that hitch a ride in soil that is almost always not sterilized before use. Yield Potential= Medium

•   Hydroponics – (Skill Level) Intermediate: with this method, plants are grown in rock wool, the most commonly used hydroponic medium, or coconut fiber, the second most common type of medium. The liquid nutrient solution is flushed over the roots periodically throughout the day, often multiple times each day. Two variants of this growing technique either reuse the “run-off,” nutrient-rich water leaking from the plants, sending it back to the water room to be sterilized and reused, or drain this run-off to the waste. According to Bryan at Plan C Design, this technique, Rockwool growing specifically, accounts for the majority of cannabis cultivation facilities, stating that more than ninety percent of the facilities he has built employ Rockwool or cocoa. Furthermore, more than ninety percent of the systems he has built are for “drain to waste,” where the nutrient-rich water leaking from the plants is directed to the municipal sewer, with the proper treatment protocols in place to prevent algae blooms from the waste stream Nitrogen component. As the industry and the laws mature, recirculation of nutrients Yield Potential = High

•   Aeroponics – (Skill level) Advanced: in these systems, plant roots are suspended inside a chamber largely filled with air, their roots dangling like so many stalactites and sprayed with a nutrient solution at specific intervals. More sophisticated systems also can inject Oxygen into the rooting chamber, speeding nutrient uptake or absorption. The maintenance required to deploy this type of technique on a commercial scale can be daunting, and one failed pump can spell doom for a room. Systems are commercially available, which employ this type of growing technique, and many operators build their custom. Typically, Aeroponics can yield better than all growing techniques due to the high oxygen availability in the root zone. Regardless, due to its knife-edge margin of error, it is only used by the most sophisticated cultivation teams. Yield Potential = High

•   Living Soil – (Skill Level) Advanced with an asterisk: Cultivators who employ living soil systems utilize the natural process of nutrient cycling in their soil, employing a rich population of fungi and bacteria which develops a symbiotic relationship with the plants' roots, aiding nutrient location, movement, and absorption. Not for the faint of heart, living soil systems can be complicated to get right, often needing a variety of amendments most operators, if not steeped in the practice, are not familiar with. These systems typically remain in place in raised beds, with the plants being harvested from the beds and replaced quickly. Although Living Soil can yield cannabis with some of the best terpene profiles of all of the growing methods, the logistics and knowledge needed to dial it in make it less than ideal unless you know what you are doing. Additionally, the potential for cross-contamination of insect populations between living soil rooms and hydroponic rooms is high. Yield Potential = Medium

Now that you have a building and you've decided how you want to grow, the next step is selecting the equipment. While each different growing method listed above will have variants in the actual cultivation supplies, there are a few things every commercial cannabis grow room needs, including:

•   Air Conditioning – Vital to the success of an indoor grow, maintaining the proper temperature and humidity is the most important single component of a properly built cultivation facility. Trying to operate without a sound cooling system, you would quickly fail, as the heat created by the lights can cook your crop at the extreme or push your environmental profile outside of the optimal levels, reducing yield. Each high-intensity 1000-watt double-ended lighting fixture, such as a Gavita or Luxx, the industry's two most popular, adds more than 5000 BTU of heat to your enclosed garden area. Newer systems employing LED lighting enjoy about half of that heat per fixture, although the trend is to layer multiple canopy levels into the same grow space, negating the BTU savings by doubling the number of fixtures in use. When we spoke with Markus Kashinsky from Critical Climate, he stated that a good rule of thumb for LED air conditioning is to add 30% capacity, as your system will have to compensate for an additional humidity load when stacking LEDs, and consequently doubling the number of plants in the space. Regardless of the fixture you decide on, be prepared to spend a good portion of your budget on your Air Conditioning system, as this is the most significant single expense to build a new indoor grow.

At the Critical Climate Shop just outside of Los Angeles, the designers take a more holistic approach to environmental management, intertwining both temperature and humidity into one component. True masters of their craft, every project is approached with priorities laid out for each client to consider and weigh using a five-point “project priority” chart:

Performance, Reliability/Redundancy, Budget, Efficiency, and Site Limitations

One mistake Markus stated he tries to steer his clients away from is prioritizing budget over performance. Better to save money in other areas, even build in stages, than skimp on air conditioning. After designing and building these systems for a decade, Critical Climate has seen the industry move from the crazy days of companies building with no plans and no budgets ensured they would get ahead with sky-high prices on their crop, to today where the focus is on longevity. They are well suited to make this transition, as Critical Climate is often the last contractor on the project:

“We end up having a long-term relationship with our clients. All of the other contractors move on to the next project, but we perform system maintenance and upkeep that everyone else doesn't need to think about. Our emphasis is on longevity in order to maximize ROI”.

•   Irrigation – All plants need water and a handful of mineral ingredients to grow. Hand watering plants is labor-intensive and time-consuming and simply is not an option when operating at these scales. Automated Irrigation systems save time and help you control and even reduce the amount of water you use. According to Plan C, the single most impactful thing they help their clients with, aside from waterproof enclosures and laying out their facility, is getting them the proper irrigation for their growing method. They design and install systems for their clients with an emphasis on redundancy, performance, and cost. The top operators make the mixing and delivery of nutrients a standardized and controlled component, preventing employee mistakes that can lead to crop loss or damage.

•   Lighting – All plants also need sunlight; indoor grow systems must provide the necessary lighting spectrum to most closely mimic the sun. While typical High-Pressure Sodium lights (think Gavita and Luxx) are cheaper on the front-end, LEDs use less electricity and produce less heat but will drive upfront costs dramatically. Average commercial LED fixtures cost around one thousand dollars or more. Additionally, you will be purchasing twice as many, a cost that some people balk at. However, with California mandating LED for all indoor grows by 2023, the smart is being spent on diodes.

•   Air Circulation – Keeping the airflow moving helps plants maintain temperatures and mimics the outdoor conditions of a breeze that helps the plants stay healthy and transpiring (breathing) right. Circulation is more challenging in a multi-tier system, with stratification between the top and bottom levels as well as dead zones under the second tier being the main challenge. Enter Canna Flow, an innovation from Critical Climate that is sure to be industry standard in the future. Using soft poly ducting resting on the trays between the plants, this system pushes fresh, sanitized air upwards into the canopy of foliage, with the top-mounted laminar exhaust ensuring zero dead spots in a double-tiered system.

•   Carbon Dioxide – Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) is also critical for top-level performance, and every large operation supplements its growth with it through compressed cylinders or outdoor liquid storage tanks, sometimes two stories high. Beware when supplementing, as it creates hazardous conditions for employees that need to be managed, using dedicated exhaust systems and ground-mounted alarms. Regardless, the performance gains from carbon dioxide enrichment are worth the extra effort, taking yields upward by 20%.

•   Waste Management – Commercial operations create waste, and the owner of that operation is responsible for clearing away the waste in an environmentally friendly, socially conscious way. There are rules and regulations for discarding plant waste, dumping chemicals, and recycling plastics that must be followed, so systems and protocols involving waste must be put in place. Typically exterior areas are best for plant waste, as they can be a breeding ground for plant pathogens like molds. Be sure to design in a locking dumpster area to contain this, as regardless of the state you are in, it needs to be secured.

DOs AND DON'Ts FROM THE PROS:

Valuable advice from Plan C Design from their long history of building and operating commercial cultivations nationwide.

DO- Go Vertical

Without question, LED lighting systems have come a long way in the last several years, and growers are learning new methods for double-stacking trays using LEDs to optimize lighting and double their canopy square footage. Besides the obvious ROI a larger canopy can achieve, the concentration of growth in a vertical method can yield efficiencies beyond yield. Best keep it to two levels; only the greedy and the foolish go three.

As an often-overlooked part of the cultivation process, cannabis must be dried and cured before it is processed and sold (except in the case of live resins). Therefore, cultivation facilities must have enough space to dry the plants once they've been cut down. These areas are some of the most important parts of the system and process. If mistakes are made at this stage, what would have been a bumper crop of California’s finest can end up smelling like hay and falling apart in your fingers. Designers and growers need to manage humidity and temperature in these areas as if they are another grow room, maintaining the proper airflow and ventilation to guard against losing a part of the crop to mold, mildew, and fungus.

Bryan from Plan C Design has a lot to say about modular building techniques, having started the first-panel company for the industry, called Canna Panels. Now shuttered due to Bryan's JV partner's greed and avarice (don't ask), many companies specialize in panel systems for growth, Plan C Design being the originals. Having more than one hundred panel builds under his belt, Bryan has seen his ideas take root and literally change an industry, as almost every new grower is using them. Be sure to use EPS panels, not the more expensive and less sturdy Urethane panels some companies are trying to sell to unsuspecting growers. Only closed-cell foam is appropriate for indoor grows.

DO- Upgrade Early

Naturally, it takes a significant amount of electricity to operate all this equipment, so ensuring you have the necessary power to do so is vital. When selecting a site, be aware that, depending on the municipality, it might take up to 12 months to get a major power upgrade on a building. This should happen concurrently with construction, so the power and the renovation meet at the end as close as possible. A sure-fire way to hamstring a new project is by waiting to apply for a power upgrade, only to find that your construction is completed, but you cannot start operating while waiting for your new power connection.

DON'T- Just Build it like you see on Instagram:

These industry titans have perfected their practice over many years and masters at marketing themselves. You don't see all of their mistakes along the way or their ongoing failures. Just because they use a piece of equipment doesn't mean it's right for your project. When you have two decades of growing experience, then you can build as they do without consideration for your team's skill level.

DON'T- Break the Bank with Automation:

Although using the shiniest touch screen devices and gadgets seems like the best way to get results, they can often bottleneck your operations and cost more than they are worth. Only use automation in key spots like environmental management and irrigation. The most widely known companies, Argus and Priva, are meant for large outdoor and Greenhouse operations. Scale down for indoor for best results and substantial cost savings.

DON'T- trust anyone who calls themselves a “Master Grower”:

Unless you want to pay through the nose and possibly get mediocre results, be sure your business plan includes contingencies for staffing at the highest levels in the garden. Commercial cultivation is more personnel management than gardening, which parallel industries have been working on for some time. The best operations have realized that an outside consultant to get them started, coupled with an experienced manager, yields the best results. Bring in a pro to teach you how to cultivate and let them go elsewhere while making your mark. Your Pro-forma will thank you.

Learn More About Plan C Design

Join us for a live podcast premiere on YouTube with Bryan Mitchell of Plan C Design and Markus Kashinsky of Critical Climate as we discuss the world of commercial cannabis construction with a view towards the next evolution of indoor agriculture.