GIGANTIC NEW MARIJUANA FACILITY IN ULSTER COUNTY Wawarsing OKs plans for marijuana production facility at former Schrade factory site
The town of Wawarsing has approved plans for a 380,000-square-foot facility that soon will be the fourth marijuana production site being built or expanded in Orange and Ulster counties.
The town planning board's approval on Tuesday allows Cresco Labs, a multi-state pot producer based in Chicago, to build a growing-and-processing operation at a former factory site on the edge of Ellenville. The company has estimated construction will take up to 18 months.
The Ulster County project comes as companies with New York medical marijuana licenses are hustling to prepare for the much larger market ahead for recreational pot use, which the state legalized last year for adults 21 and older. No licenses have been issued yet for Cresco or any other companies to grow cannabis for the adult-use market.
Wawarsing and Ellenville officials had embraced the Cresco project from the outset as a welcome revival for a derelict property where a major employer once stood.
Cresco has told the town its plant will employ 679 people. Its plans, heralded by Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan and local officials last summer before the company had even submitted them, have moved quickly since Cresco formally applied to the town on Nov. 30. The board's review took less than four months.
Cresco is the parent company of Valley Agriceuticals, which holds one of 10 licenses New York gave to companies to make and sell medical marijuana to patients with prescriptions. Valley Agriceuticals sells its products at four Sunnyside dispensaries around the state, including one in Bardonia in Rockland County.