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Rendering of AmeriCann facility to be built in Freetown, Massachusetts

(Courtesy of AmeriCann)

Tucked away on 53 acres of land in a small Bristol County town, a million-square-foot facility is being built to meet the growing demand for marijuana in Massachusetts.

The property - set to open this fall - will feature a state-of-the-art medical cannabis cultivation facility known as the Massachusetts Medical Cannabis Center.

The center will be one of the largest cannabis cultivation facilities in the United States and on the forefront of emerging technologies in the field.

The first phase of construction, which will begin in March, includes a 130,000 square-foot facility for the cultivation and processing of marijuana plants and a 30,000 space for the research and development of marijuana goods, from infused products to plant science.

Additional facilities will be built as the company lines up new tenants, with 1,000,000 square feet in the design stages of development. The process may be expedited after Massachusetts residents voted to approve recreational use of marijuana last month.

AmeriCann, a publicly traded company based in Denver, purchased the land this fall for $4,475,000 from Boston Beer Company, the makers of Samuel Adams.

"This is a project that has been in the works for quite a while," said AmeriCann CEO Tim Keogh.

The company began looking for development projects in Massachusetts after medical marijuana became legal nearly four years ago.

Freetown became an attractive location for the facility after the little more than 8,000 residents overwhelmingly approved the land for medical use in 2012. This step, Keogh said, made the process of "taking it from a raw piece of land and developing it" easier.

As a publicly-traded company, AmeriCann does not grow or process marijuana for medical or recreational use. Coastal Compassion, Inc, a not-for-profit based in Fairhaven - is the first tenant lined up for the space.

All cannabis cultivated in the Freetown facility will be available for sale only in Massachusetts, as required by state law.