Cannabis Real Estate Firm Lands $35M Investment To Grow Northeast Footprint
As the cannabis market continues to expand in New England, a local owner of dispensaries and cultivation facilities has secured a big investment to support its growth.
Nashville-based Big Plan Holdings invested $35M to acquire a stake in Silver Therapeutics, a cannabis company with properties in Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont that has expansion plans in New York and New Jersey.
BPH co-CEO Josh Joseph worked with Silver Therapeutics two years ago on an initial deal in Maine and said the focus on the Northeast was due to its dense populations in Massachusetts down to New York and New Jersey leading to growth opportunities.
"The Northeast region was kind of the next place to kind of focus in on," Joseph said. "[One of the] highly densely populated areas of the country, without question, in terms of New York and New Jersey and Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts."
Silver Therapeutics has six locations in the Northeast with a seventh on the way in Boston. The new dispensary is expected to open by the end of this year.
The facility will be around 7,500 SF, according to a spokesperson, and it will have a recreational retail and cultivation arm under one roof. The facility will take over a former florist shop at 721 American Legion Highway. It will keep the name of the florist shop, City Farm, for its cultivation and lab space.
The region's cannabis market has been rapidly growing since Massachusetts opened the first two adult-use retail locations on the East Coast in 2018. Last year, the state surpassed $4B in gross sales since then, and it was at $915M in sales for the year as of Aug. 6, according to Cannabis Control Commission Massachusetts.
As of last year, 11 cannabis retailers had opened in Boston since adult-use sales began four years prior, the Boston Globe reported.
BPH first partnered with Silver Therapeutics in 2021 by investing in three dispensaries and one cultivation and processing facility. The new deal consolidated the cannabis company's locations into "one wholly owned company," according to Joseph.
Silver Therapeutics CEO Josh Silver said in a statement that BPH's Joseph and Michael Mook have been added to its board of directors.
“Their exceptional expertise, proven track record of successes and diverse perspectives will undoubtedly enrich our strategic vision as we continue to lead the way in the cannabis industry's innovation and growth," Silver said.
Joseph has been in the cannabis game for a while, opening his own company called GrassRoots just under 10 years ago and expanding it to 12 states before selling the company in 2020 to Curaleaf for $850M.
Silver Therapeutics isn't the only investment Joseph and BPH have made in cannabis real estate. Last week, the company closed on an acquisition of a site in Monaca, Pennsylvania, that it leased back to Massachusetts-based Ascend Wellness Holdings, Joseph said.
"We're coast to coast," Joseph said. "We have numerous holdings around the country in the cannabis space. We'll buy a piece of real estate and lease it back to the cannabis operator."
