The first medical marijuana growing company to set up shop in Albany County is slated to open this summer in the Coeymans Industrial Park.
PalliaTech NY, LLC is looking to retrofit a building in the industrial park to start manufacturing medical marijuana, clearing its last hurdle Wednesday with the Albany County Industrial Development Agency’s approval of roughly $450,000 in sales tax exemptions for equipment purchases to get the facility set for production.
“We’re making a very large investment in this manufacturing facility, and we’re hiring a lot of people, and there are costs associated with that,” said Michelle Bodner, president and CEO of PalliaTech NY. “We’re looking forward to joining the business community and becoming an active member and participating in any way we can.”
PalliaTech NY – a subsidiary of Massachusetts-based PalliaTech, Inc. – was slated to open a manufacturing location in Ulster County when it first received licensing last year, but the space the company planned to use didn’t pan out. Bodner said they couldn’t find another suitable location in the Mid-Hudson Valley county, and so gravitated to the Coeymans space.
The company aims to open this summer and employ up to 25 people in the first year, growing to about 30 within two years, according to its county IDA application.
PalliaTech was one of five new companies given licenses last year to join five existing firms in growing and selling medical marijuana products in New York. The other companies are New York Canna, Fiorello Pharmaceuticals, Valley Agriceuticals and Citiva Medical.
The additions were considered a dramatic expansion of the program’s physical footprint. Under state law, each company can operate up to four product dispensaries, which would bring the statewide total to 40 if all companies fully build out over time.
Fiorello is poised to open its own manufacturing location in Glenville Business and Technology Park in Schenectady County, but it was unclear Friday where the company is at in the process.
When New York first licensed companies to grow and dispense medical marijuana, Albany County saw dispensaries pop up in the capital city, but manufacturing operations remained on the outskirts of the Capital Region. The additions will join two other marijuana cultivation centers – Vireo Health of NY and Etain – located in Fulton and Warren counties, respectively.
George McHugh, general counsel to Carver Laraway, which owns the industrial park, said PalliaTech’s 10-year lease on a building in the park started in November.
He said the park just happened to be situated for this type of business, considering the requirements that must be met, including appropriate zoning and a location that is at least 1,000 feet away from places of worship and schools.
“There was a lot of criteria that had to be satisfied before they made the decision to come to Coeymans,” he said. “Certainly Carver Companies is excited to have PalliaTech, and it certainly diversifies our tenant base. We only see a very positive relationship coming from this.”
