Steel Buildings For Cannabis Industry

Customer Profiles

Marijuana-Grow-House-Armstrong-Steel

‘I was ready to go the distance for this customer’

Jumping Through the Hoops of State Regulations

On November 7, 2000, 54% of Colorado voters approved Amendment 20, which amended the State Constitution to allow the use of cannabis in the state for approved patients with written medical consent. For a decade and a half, Colorado led the nation in efforts to legalize marijuana and in 2014, Colorado became the first state in the union to allow marijuana for recreational use by way of Amendment 64.

This gave rise to an industry of heavily regulated marijuana growers and sellers. One company which saw the profit potential in this new legalization was Green Solutions.

Green Solutions was started in 2010 by Kyle S. and his middle class family. The family became intimately aware of the strict regulations that govern everything from distribution to the facilities which grow marijuana. The state has mandated such things as how many cameras are required in the buildings, what kind of security, where the safes need to be located as well as regulations with respect to snow and wind loads for buildings, which are different from traditional buildings.

This did not deter Kyle, “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but we also knew this was a business which could grow and sustain our family,” says Kyle.

Kyle’s family built a 60,000 square foot grow facility according to state regulations and soon discovered that, in order to maximize profits, the entire 60,000 square feet would be needed for plants; none of it should be wasted on storage of the chemicals and tools required for year-long cultivation.

Some of Armstrong’s customers are found through referrals, some find us because competitors love talking about us, but most find us online. Armstrong employs some of the most forward thinking sales representatives, web developers and marketing minds in the state. Kyle says, “I just googled you guys. I didn’t have to shop around and I was impressed with your site.”

Kyle’s building was fairly simple. “I worked on a basic 40 x 100 supplemental building, we went through a really easy process, I got preliminary plans which I could present to the state, everyone [at Armstrong] followed up with me all the time, it was a pretty good experience,” he mentions, almost casually.

“It was really nice to work with them through most of the process, I didn’t feel like their job was just to sell me a building. It was to make sure I got what I wanted. As someone who sells as well, I feel like this was a nice way to demonstrate you guys took my project seriously,” says Kyle.

Towards the final stages of the steel building project, Bennett Hietbrink, an Armstrong Steel Project Manager got involved. “At the end, I worked with Bennett. He went through all the specs and made sure the building department for the City and County of Denver was good. We discovered that the snow loads met state requirements but did not meet the higher standards of the city, so we did a simple redesign and avoided a problem before there ever was one,” says Kyle, relieved.

Green Solutions ordered the building early, before the construction on the foundation had even begun. “Our business model is to keep reinvesting into the company, so rather than wait, we went ahead and got the building before we even started construction,” Kyle mentions.

This meant the building would need to be delivered and stored before erection. “I worked with Kitty, she explained how to prepare the job site for delivery, and how to store the components until we were ready to put it up,” he mentions.

“I knew a lot of the state regulations for buildings already, but your designers also researched this and made sure the building met the zoning codes for the City of Denver, the County of Denver, and the State of Colorado marijuana regulators with no problem.”

How satisfied was Kyle with Armstrong Steel?

“Well, let’s just say, I’m already buying my second building from you guys,”