On Ramon Road in Cathedral City, beams and walls are beginning to frame a structure so big, you could rebuild the Palm Springs Convention Center on top of the same footprint and still have space to spare.

This is the future home of Sunniva, a Canada-based medical cannabis company that plans to grow, process and sell marijuana from a base in Cathedral City.

The construction underway today – the portion larger than the convention center – is only the first of two buildings that will be built on the Ramon Road campus. When both buildings are finished, they'll cover 489,000 square feet, or more than eight football fields.

More:You may soon be able to bring weed to Palm Springs airport, but you can still find yourself in a sticky situation

More:Cannabis crackdown: Pot businesses stoked as law enforcement takes aim at unlicensed shops

The Sunniva site is substantial by other measures, too.

The campus will employ more than 100 people, likely rivaling the number of people working for Cathedral City itself. And Sunniva's site is projected to generate $5 million or more every year in city cannabis tax revenue when finished, no trivial sum in a city with a total expenditure budget of $112 million.

But this one cannabis hot spot was built with many smaller pieces.

As the one year anniversary of Cathedral City approving Sunniva approaches this month, a Desert Sun analysis of 350 local cannabis business licenses and applications across five cities found that the company's address on Ramon Road is among the places with the most local cannabis business licenses in the Coachella Valley.

It's an example of one way cannabis cultivation companies eyeing California are growing larger while staying on the right side of state regulations.

California's cannabis rules limit the size of cannabis farms. Pot companies apply for a different license depending on the size of their proposed farm, and while licensees can hold an unlimited number of licenses to grow 10,000 square feet of cannabis, they are limited to just one license for 22,000 square feet.

So instead of operating one big farm, a Sunniva subsidiary holds several licenses for smaller grows on Ramon Road – and the company plans to lease some of the Cathedral City campus to tenants, too.

To understand how Sunniva came together in Cathedral City, The Desert Sun interviewed members of the company, as well as Cathedral City staff. Reporters also reviewed city and state business licensing records and meeting video.

The picture of Sunniva that emerged is a business formed with the aid of a rotating cast of investors and consultants – and one vying to be a major player in an industry where, in Cathedral City alone, more than 100 potential cannabis businesses are licensed but not yet operating.

The size of Sunniva's ambitions in Cathedral City is greater than the sum of its square footage alone.

The facility on Ramon Road will cost $54 million to build. When both phases are complete, it will grow 187,000 pounds of dry cannabis a year – enough to roll somewhere between 160 million to 390 million average-sized joints a year. Last year, Sunniva estimated that three or more shipments of product will leave the facility every week in 5-ton trucks.

The first building is set to be completed around December, according to the company. Construction on the second should begin in 2019.

Inside, the company will lease portions of its buildings to tenants to grow cannabis. Luke Stanton, Sunniva's executive director of U.S. operations, said the company is still working out some of the details in the tenant business model as state regulations change.

More:Cannabis deliveries could soon be legal in Indian Wells, even though the city objects

More:College of the Desert will push local cannabis industry to higher ground with new program

For now, the arrangement is a way for Sunniva to stay compliant with California rules limiting the size of growers.

"Sunniva continually monitors the evolution of regulations in the state of California," Stanton wrote in an email, "and is dedicated to compliance with all regulatory requirements of our industry."

But the Ramon Road campus won't only be an industrial site. Sunniva also will carve out space on the campus for a medical marijuana dispensary. At a city Planning Commission hearing a year ago, a Sunniva representative said the company hopes its shop will attract the same mid- to high-earning customer as an Apple Store.

Finally, the company isn't stopping at Ramon Road. At a second facility in Cathedral City, the company will extract cannabis to be used in vape capsules and other products.

All of that infrastructure will be built on a foundation of paperwork – and an evolving group of people.

According to Pat Milos, Cathedral City's community development director, there are 25 ​​​​​cannabis business licenses for the Sunniva site at 69375 Ramon Road.

Of the 25, 17 belong to CP Logistics, LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sunniva Holdings Corp., as of the company's most recent annual financial filings.

SIGN UP FOR FACEBOOK NEWS ALERTS: Message us here to get started

More:Citing spike in weed usage among students, Palm Springs Unified wants to place focus on more counseling and prevention

More:Indio is suing its neighbor Coachella over a weed dispensary on shared border

The remaining businesses licenses are held by other companies with different owners, Milos said.

The reason for all of those licenses? California regulation. Besides different types of licenses for different cannabis-related functions – like retailing, distributing or manufacturing – California has also imposed limits on how many grow licenses a single licensee can hold.

That's why CP Logistics' cultivation will include one license for 22,000 square feet of canopy and 11 for 10,000 square feet, by Milos' count.

A chain of different people have been listed on CP Logistics' paperwork in Cathedral City over time.

Milos said CP Logistics began with an applicant named Edlin Kim, who initially started licensing paperwork with the city to be the company's owner-operator.

The people listed on CP Logistics have since changed a few times. Milos said the transfer process requires the new license holders to go through the same licensing procedures, including passing a background check, before new holders can legally operate the license.

Kim did not respond to a request to comment on details about his decision to get involved with the project and then withdraw his participation.

But Cathedral City records show he is among the Coachella Valley's most prolific cannabis business license applicants. In total, Kim has applied for 29 cannabis business licenses in Cathedral City, according to public records obtained in July.

Cathedral City gave Sunniva a warm reception when Planning Commission approved the project in September 2017.

One resident of an adjacent RV community said the building plans were so striking “you might think you’re in Beaverton driving by Nike or in Cupertino driving by Microsoft."

She welcomed the plan to turn a vacant, vandalized lot into something that would bring jobs to the neighborhood instead.

More:Palm Springs City Council approves lowest permitting fees for pot shops in the valley

More:Can you really treat cats and dogs with cannabis?

More:Meet the group influencing Coachella Valley cannabis policy from behind the scenes

Another Cathedral City resident suggested the campus might even become a tourist attraction.

Michael Hagedorn, a member of the commission, remarked the city "should be pretty proud of this project."

The Sunniva campus passed Planning Commission 5-0 – and the audience even applauded.

Even with a large player like Sunniva coming to town, Milos said the cannabis industry in his city is far from concentrated. Some applicants only plan to fill 10,000 square feet or less.

And many operations keep such a low profile, Milos finds neighboring business people might not recognize one another.

“It’s not like you have one person controlling the whole market,” he said.

Amy DiPierro covers real estate and business news for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs. Reach her at amy.dipierro@desertsun.com or 760-218-2359. Natalie Anderson is a news intern at The Desert Sun.