“We can expect them to break ground on a new facility sometime in the spring,” he explains. “Obviously they need to wait for the weather to improve a little bit…. sometime I would guess in March or April of 2018. And then they’ll work through the summer and into the fall with construction of the first phase of their facility.”

Lethbridge was chosen, Lewington says, because of the amount of natural sunlight the city gets, relatively low operating costs, the available workforce, and the support that they’ve received from the city.

“This is an industrial application; processing and packaging in a greenhouse, and that’s exactly what the Sherring Industrial Park is for. The biggest thing they have to consider is that they have to be approved by Health Canada. So they have been working for some time on the Federal approval process, and there’s some pretty rigorous security requirements as you might imagine.”

According to Fifty First Parallel’s website, the first phase of the project will consist of a 50,000-square foot greenhouse complex and a 25,000-square foot custom built production and office facility. There will be 12 growing rooms, with fully internalized HVAC control, temperature control, heating and cooling systems, humidity and climate control.

Phase two will consist of 30,00 square foot greenhouse expansion and will add another 2,100 kg per year of production capacity.

By the end of the third phase, the company is expected to directly employ at least 150 people, and will be capable of producing up to 12,600 kg of cannabis per year.

There will also be a 1,000-square foot high security vault, capable of holding up to 15,000 kg of finished product.