There hasn’t been a lot of activity over the winter at the seven-acre Cannabis Innovation Centre construction site these days, but it’s about to get busy. Real busy.

The prefabricated greenhouses have arrived from the Netherlands that will span over 21,000 square feet, along with a crew of Dutch workers. After a few days of safety training, the workers will begin installation.

Walls are already going up for the 10,500 square foot office building and laboratories, which was also prefabricated. Employees of Island Timber Frames, of Cumberland, are helping in this specialized type of construction.

The office building components arrived in packages, with each piece individually marked with a code for where it fits into the complex erection process. The parts were packaged to be taken out and installed in a specific order.

Heidi Nesbitt, the lead architect on the project from the Vancouver firm Local Practice, told Decafnation on site today that there is a digital database with the code for each individual piece and all its particular specifications.

Some of the large beams have ends pre-cut at multiple angles that will only fit in a single location.

Nesbitt and Project Coordinator Nick Page toured the site Tuesday morning. Page is the twin brother of Dr. Jon Page, who founded Anandia Labs and was the first scientist to sequence the cannabis genome. The Page brothers were born and raised in the Comox Valley.

Due in part to the unique requirements for preventing cross-contamination among the seven isolated sections of the greenhouse, there is a complex web of electrical, water and other utilities weaving through foundation.

Page and Nesbitt joked they hoped it all is accurately positioned.

At the same time as the building construction, other crews are creating an infiltration gallery and detention pond to control rainwater falling on the property.

Page said the piece of the property used for the infiltration gallery was given to the Town of Comox, but the CIC will pay for its ongoing maintenance.

The current $20 million project is the first phase of construction on the site. Future phases will expand both the greenhouses and the labs.

The new 31,500 square-foot phase-one facility in Comox will do all of Anandia’s breeding and genetics, and provide feed stocks for more medical strains of cannabis exclusively for Aurora.

The centre will focus on disease resistance and preventing mould, powdery mildew and other diseases and pathogens common in commercial cannabis cultivation.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER