Cannabis manufacturer interested in Tremont Nail steel building

Nov 19, 2020

Aspen Blue Cultures has expressed interest in using the steel building on the Tremont Nail Factory property to manufacture and package a variety of cannabis products.

The company is about a year and a half old and has obtained three provisional licenses from the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission for retail, manufacturing and cultivation in Attleboro. 

Aspen Blue also obtained a provisional license from the commission for a retail operation in Wellfleet, and hopes to obtain three more provisional licenses — for retail, manufacturing and cultivation — in Charlton.

At a Nov. 19 meeting, Aspen Blue’s president and CEO Patrick Casey told the Wareham Redevelopment Authority that the steel building in Wareham would provide a central manufacturing location.

“What this facility enables us to do is consolidate all our manufacturing facilities across our other provisional licenses,” Casey said. “So we would be able to maximize cultivation in the other locations and strictly have manufacturing, extraction, a kitchen and packaging for resale at this particular location.”

He said streamlining manufacturing would give Aspen Blue a chance to concentrate on growing its brand and servicing individual dispensaries.

Although the company has obtained provisional licenses for manufacturing in Attleboro and plans to pursue one for the Charlton location, Casey said they will not use the other facilities for manufacturing if they are able to secure the Tremont steel building.

Frank Zaino, Aspen Blue’s chief engineer, described the steel building as the company’s “central post-harvesting operation.”

“Even though we have provisional licenses in the other communities for laboratories and commercial kitchens, we feel it wouldn’t be economical to open multiple facilities (for manufacturing),” Zaino said, adding that manufacturing in Wareham means the facilities elsewhere can maximize square footage used for cultivation.

The Aspen Blue representatives said their plans would utilize the entire steel building.

This is not the first time a cannabis manufacturing company has expressed interest in the Tremont Nail Factory steel building. 

Organa Brands, a cannabis manufacturing company set to be the flagship tenant of the redeveloped Tremont Nail Factory, pulled out of the deal earlier this year — but not before the company completed about $300,000 in renovations to the steel building.