The park is being built in Auburn
A new project being billed as the “first and only cannabis business park” in Maine is beginning to take shape. Mystique Way is behind the project, which now counts on the support of Cliff Miller, the head of the Atlantic Cannabis Collective, and which is going to see a number of cannabis greenhouses developed in the area.
Mystique Way is owned by three businessmen out of Portland. They purchased 32 acres of land off Minot Ave. last year that once were part of a 1960 industrial park. They submitted an application to build a greenhouse on the property and then approached Miller, who is also building two other greenhouses.
The 34-year-old Miller explains, “I want to be the biggest, the best, the cleanest, the most high-end we can be. Typically if I can envision it, if I can put some milestones and goals and rationalize how to get there, I will make it happen. It’s going to be cool.”
The facilities can cultivate cannabis, provided the city makes the necessary arrangements through its ordinances. Auburn’s deputy director of economic and community development, Eric Cousens, explains, “The council’s going to have to vote on that in May, but the previous council was very open to it as a piece of our economy. It is creating jobs, it’s creating new taxable value — these are substantial investments that are entirely because of that industry.”
Miller expects the location to have an investment of as much as $7 million by the end of this year. He says, “Just the (grow) lights from my two facilities were $225,000. We’re not putting up little hoop houses, we’re putting up state-of-the-art facilities.”
And, this is just the beginning. Miller doesn’t believe in small and expects more growth in the area. Eventually, there could be more than 50,000 square feet of greenhouses in the area and asserts, “My goal is to be the largest cannabis company in the state of Maine.”