A new marijuana business venture is shaping up to be the biggest project for Walsenburg in years.
Construction is about to start on a greenhouse campus that could bring thousands of workers and their families to the area. It is a partnership between the city of Walsenburg and the contractors building the campus. The city is providing the land, the water and its full cooperation in hopes that the greenhouses for rent can help turn around the area's dwindling economy.
The 330-acre expanse of formerly city-owned farmland just east of town will soon be transformed into an expanse of 92 greenhouses, all with just one crop, marijuana. Contractor Brian Trani, CEO of Martra Holdings, came up with the idea after seeing how much growers were paying to produce cannabis in the Denver area, and decided something needed to change. "When I realized what the carbon footprint was on some of the indoor cultivations that we were assisting with designing and building, it didn't sit very well," he says.