MEDICINE HAT, AB — A monstrous project in Medicine Hat is set to grow even larger.
Aurora Cannabis dropped a bombshell on Wednesday, announcing they will be expanding the size of the Aurora Sun production facility in the Box Springs business park by a whopping 33 percent.
Aurora’s chief operating officer Allan Cleiren took stakeholders and media of a tour of the massive facility on Wednesday and said the expansion was the next logical step for Aurora Sun.
“We’re growing as a company and it’s a global demand for this product, so we see the need for more production,” said Cleiren.
The facility will be expanding from 1.2 million square feet to 1.62 million square feet, which will be equal to the size of 35 football fields once completed.
According to Aurora, that will up their yearly production rate from 150,000 kilograms per year to 230,000 kilograms of product annually.
“We’re able to do that quite rapidly given that all the infrastructure we’re already putting in place for the larger 1.2 million square feet,” said Cleiren.
Invest Medicine Hat was one of the groups that got an up-close look at progress on the project, which he said was made even more exciting by the expansion announcement.
“Obviously, they’re taking a risk and it seems like they’re being rewarded for taking that risk again by expanding in Medicine Hat,” said Randall.
Randall added it was a special visit for his group, as they have been in conversations with Aurora since the beginning.
“To go from that kind of ethereal, theoretical ‘we want you to come to town’ [pitch], to actually seeing… I heard there’s 60 people on site today doing the work and to see all the steel going up, it’s cool,” he said.
Once fully operational, one million plants will be grown at any given time and Cleiren added that process is expected to begin sooner rather than later.
“We do expect that as early as the end of June we’ll be able to bring genetics into the facility,” he said.
The expansion won’t bring an immediate increase in jobs, with 450 people expected to be hired by the time the facility is fully open.
Though there’s also a chance that number could eventually balloon to over 600 employees, something that excites Randall about the future of the facility.
“This is a brand new industry that didn’t really even exist five years ago,” said Randall. “And now, one percent of our population is potentially going to be working at this facility. So, all I can say is that it’s fantastic to see.”
And in Invest Medicine Hat’s eyes, it’s a market the city is ready and willing to corner.
“I’d like to think that Medicine Hat has made it’s mark in this new industry,” said Randall.
Glass on the facility will be arriving in the coming weeks, while the full opening of Aurora Sun is being projected for the first quarter of 2020.
