GB Sciences Louisiana and the LSU AgCenter are turning a former Pepsi distribution center in south Baton Rouge into one of the state’s two medical marijuana growing facilities, and officials expect the plant to be ready for patients sometime later this year.
The location of the facility, which the LSU AgCenter has not wanted disclose for “security purposes,” was revealed in a public SEC filing from the Nevada-based penny stock company GB Sciences last fall and in its most recent filing this week. State law also made the location a public record.
According to the filing, the wholly-owned Louisiana subsidiary of GB Sciences signed a lease in August for the 38,500-square-foot building at 18350 Petroleum Drive in the Highland Business Park, near the Highland Road exit off of Interstate 10. The company is paying $25,588 a month for the first five-year term, and would eventually pay up to $30,966 a month if the lease is renewed. The facility sits on 5.38 acres, and the company says the building has 36,125 square feet of interior space.
“This location provides excellent access to major corridors and (is) perfectly situated for distribution,” a property listing says.
LSU students won’t work at the facility. The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office told both LSU and Southern University, the other licensed grower, they can hire off-duty deputies for extra detail to provide security, and the company is expected to hire private security as well.
After being selected as LSU’s vendor for the state’s nascent medical marijuana program last year, GB Sciences brought on Bill Settoon, a chemical engineer who graduated from LSU and Tulane University, to serve as vice president and general manager of GB Sciences Louisiana and run the local project.
Settoon, who has also cited security concerns for not disclosing the building’s location, says the company will likely file for permits for its growing facility in the coming week, with the goal of completing construction this summer and having product available sometime shortly thereafter. Work that doesn’t require permits has already taken place at the location, he adds.
On Wednesday, the company announced it has agreed to sell 15% equity to the newly-formed Lafayette-based Wellcana Group LLC. Charles Hohorst and Charles Rush are listed as the officers of the limited liability company that controls Wellcana Group, whose investment will help finance the Louisiana project.
The company is expected to invest between $5 million and $7 million in the building, and Settoon says a contractor in Austin is currently building modular clean rooms—often used in manufacturing and pharmaceutical research to create a controlled environment—that will be installed at the Baton Rouge facility.
“It’s not just throwing a bunch of seeds out in the back of the building,” Settoon says. “It’s a very high tech operation.”
A biologist and botanist from Germany is set to move to Louisiana soon to run the grow operation. The facility will only sell wholesale to dispensaries, who will sell to patients who have a “recommendation” from a doctor. Louisiana’s medical marijuana program is among the most narrow in the country and offers the plant only to patients with serious diseases like cancer, HIV and several neurological disorders.
