{"id":119251,"date":"2014-07-07T21:45:44","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T03:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-marijuana-shops-stick-close-to-home\/"},"modified":"2014-07-07T21:45:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T03:45:44","slug":"durango-marijuana-shops-stick-close-to-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-marijuana-shops-stick-close-to-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango marijuana shops stick close to home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Pedestrians
Pedestrians pass the door for 965\u00bd Main Ave. on Tuesday, the same day the Acceptus Group applied for a retail marijuana license from the city of Durango for the location.<\/span>SHAUN STANLEY\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

With the first batch of retail marijuana land-use applications submitted to the city of Durango last week, marijuana businesses were forced to disclose their planned locations.<\/p>\n

So far, it appears the retail marijuana industry\u2019s impact on commercial real estate may be modest. Of the four applicants, three chose to locate their retail operations at the same location as their dispensaries.<\/p>\n

Only one, The Acceptus Group, applied for a separate location: 965\u00bd Main Ave., a second-floor unit in the heart of Durango\u2019s commercial downtown.<\/p>\n

The others would be located at existing dispensaries at 1111 Camino del Rio, 48 East Animas Road (County Road 250) and 72 Suttle Street in Bodo Industrial Park.<\/p>\n

Don Ricedorff, a real-estate agent with The Wells Group in Durango, said he\u2019s had several inquiries from marijuana businesses interested in a downtown location. In one case, a landlord decided against hosting a marijuana shop, fearing it wouldn\u2019t be a good fit with neighbors.<\/p>\n

Ricedorff recommended any landlord considering leasing to a marijuana operation first seek a legal opinion. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know where that puts the landlord,\u201d Ricedorff said.<\/p>\n

In other communities, warehouse demand has proved to have arguably the strongest impact locally. Growers need warehouses or other large, commercial buildings for their marijuana plots.<\/p>\n

Legal marijuana has driven demand on Breckenridge\u2019s Airport Road, said Jack Wolfe, owner of Wolfe and Co. Commercial Real Estate in Breckenridge. Airport Road serves a similar function to Durango\u2019s Bodo Industrial Park.<\/p>\n

Wolfe said the owner of a CrossFit space approached him looking for a new location. The CrossFit owner complained a neighboring marijuana business had gone to his landlord and offered to pay higher rent for his location.<\/p>\n

Marijuana businesses \u201ccan pay more, and are paying more, to buy and lease space,\u201d Wolfe said.<\/p>\n

Breckenridge\u2019s Town Council is considering whether to allow a retail marijuana shop to stay downtown after its current lease expires. The shop could be grandfathered in or kicked out. The council also could open up downtown to pot shops en masse, a move that Wolfe said could drive rents even higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019ll have a dramatic impact on lease rates, if not values,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pueblo County has seen strong demand for warehouse space. It\u2019s not for local consumption \u2013 growers from the Front Range have established operations in Pueblo County to supply their shops elsewhere, said Dan Molello, a commercial broker with Jones-Healy Inc. Realtors in Pueblo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat has had a pretty big effect on the industrial market here as far as demand for industrial space,\u201d Molello said.<\/p>\n

In Denver, demand for warehouses has driven up costs. Some growers this spring were paying $18 per square foot in some instances, and the industrial vacancy rate fell to 3.1 percent, The Denver Post reported.<\/p>\n

A Denver commercial property agent did not return a call seeking comment.<\/p>\n

The effects of The Acceptus Group\u2019s proposed downtown location remains to be seen. The space is located above The Jewelry Works, and next door to Subway.<\/p>\n

The space is owned by Denise L. Elliott, a local insurance agent, and William Whitney. Elliott did not return a message seeking comment, and Whitney declined to comment when reached.<\/p>\n

cslothower@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dispensaries choose to co-locate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[551],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-119251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-frontpage-feature-box"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119251"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=119251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}