Grand Rapids’ first medical marijuana shop set to open next week

Cannabis

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Tucked away in an industrial park off of U.S. 131 and Hall Street is a shop with an inviting glass facade that stands out from the other metal-sided tenants.

It’s at that location, part of the former Benteler Automotive facility, where Grand Rapids’ first medical marijuana provisioning center is scheduled to open.

Doors to the Fluresh provisioning center at 1213 Phillips Ave. SW will open to card-holding medical marijuana patients at 10 a.m. Feb. 7, ushering in the city’s first-ever legal sales of marijuana, albeit the medical category.

“We are really excited about it. We think this is an amazing community,” said Lindsay Levin, chief marketing and sales officer for Fluresh. “We think that our medical cannabis will be able to serve a number of patients and really provide them the experience they’re looking for.”

The Grand Rapids Planning Commission began hearing from applicants for medical marijuana facilities in May 2019. So far, the commission has approved plans for 24 of them.

According to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Fluresh is the only licensed medical marijuana provisioning center in the city as of Jan. 29.

The city is tentatively slated to begin accepting applications for recreational marijuana facilities on April 20.

For Fluresh’s Feb. 7 grand opening, new patients as well as that first-in-line will be able to score some first-day deals. The provisioning center will open with stock including various strains of the bud itself along with extracts, topicals, edibles and more.

“We are looking to provide as many products as patients are looking for,” Levin said. “We want to be able to service every patient’s needs.”

Regular hours at the Phillips Avenue provisioning center will be 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday. Those go into effect after the grand opening

Fluresh is planning to headquarter its operations at the Phillips Avenue location. Separated but in the same building, space will also house up to 58,000 square feet of medical marijuana growing operations. The company also hopes to process marijuana there as well.

The combined provisioning, headquarter and growing operations translate to more than 100 employees, said Fluresh CEO, Leah Bailey.

Source: M Live

Image Source: M Live