RE:RE:Was at the Edmonton Facility Recentlycornwallis wrote: Have you made similar visits to any other cannabis production facilities belonging to other companies? If so, how would you rate RQB's compared to any others you've seen?
I haven't. I have spent 20+ years in IT which has given me opportunity to see the inside of countless datacenters (which have nearly identical requirements to a cannabis facility like RQB's, interestingly enough: power handling, environmental control, air handling and filtering, water control, etc.). I'm using that as the background for my evaluation of the facility. Their air handling is pretty exceptional. Their buildout is well-planned. The facility is purpose-built to grow cannabis, not a re-imagined space that's being adapted to RQB's needs.
cornwallis wrote: Was the entire interior of the building being used for some purpose, even if some areas may still have been a work-in-progress?
The facility was only being used for RQB activities. Offices were only occupied by RQB staff we were introduced to. Transition rooms were in full production use (dressing rooms, showers, equipment stores, used equipment recovery). Mother rooms were mostly full of 24-36" plants. Nurseries were the only non-grow rooms that were lightly-filled when I was there, but were scheduled to be populated in the coming weeks (which would be about a week ago by now). So the short answer is yes, the facility was being used, as far as I can tell, only for RQB purpose.
cornwallis wrote: By "directed to the warehouse next door where they were assembling Orbital Garden racks", do you mean a separate warehouse within the same building, or a completely separate building (like the one to the east)?
It was warehouse space in a separate building to the east of the RQB facility. I believe RQB occupies the entire building their man-gate is connected to (based on the tour, I can't picture any other space being conceivably occupied by another company in that building).
cornwallis wrote: Part of the
RQB web site mentions "Additional land to expand the facility to more than double capacity as a second stage". Was anything said about this possibility, by any chance?
Ok, this part was unclear during the tour and in discussions with staff. There is nowhere else to expand within their building, but there is the space I referred to in my other post that was unlicensed during our visit that would literally increase their space overnight since it was those 4-5 additional rooms. I doubt that's the space they were referring to, but it could be? There is an identical building beside them, hard to say whether they have any agreement to buy or lease it. There *is*, however, a space basically equal in size to the current RQB facility, right behind the facility, in the form of a giant tarmac/parking area they could build on. There is also open land in close proximity to the current building (and quite literally acres of space nearby in that part of Edmonton, both open land and developed warehouses).
cornwallis wrote: Do you think it's safe to assume that this situation is just temporary, and would likely be resolved once all of the construction and other setup has been completed?
That's entirely the impression I was left with. Everyone there was working full-bore. It basically felt like there had been three trailers delivered in the past two weeks that had just been dumped on the parking lot and the staff was doing their best to deal with it. The staff we spoke with all cared a lot about their work, but seemed crazy-busy with tasks at hand, finishing building out the facility and dealing with harvesting.
While I'm here, thanks as well for the kind words in your post, Hawkeye77, and I agree. People need to find the same value in RQB that others have.
More updates when I have something to update.