DEERFIELD — The Planning Board kicked off the special permitting process for a proposed “cannabis campus” on Monday, as SunnyDayz Inc. presented the initial plan for its three-building site.

The company, which signed a host community agreement with the Selectboard in September 2021, plans to build a marijuana cultivation facility, retail dispensary and third-party testing laboratory on a vacant, wooded lot on Greenfield Road (Routes 5 and 10) south of the Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Hospital (VESH) and southwest of Tree House Brewing Co.

SunnyDayz Chief Cultivation Officer and co-owner Ken Bouquillon and John Furman, the office manager of Springfield-based engineering company VHB, laid out their initial presentation to the Planning Board ahead of a peer review of the site plan, special permit application and stormwater management plan.

“The proposal tonight is for this ‘cannabis campus,’ we call it; there’s multiple buildings relating to cannabis in a single site,” Bouquillon explained. “We’re looking forward to getting a review done and getting in front of the Planning Board and discussing any questions you might have about the property.”

The company owns 28 acres of land in the area and will use about 5 acres, according to Bouquillon. The plan is to put a road through the wooded property and construct a 5,000-square-foot testing lab, 26,705-square-foot indoor cultivation facility and a 3,539-square-foot dispensary, along with all relevant parking, lighting and utility upgrades needed, according to the special permit application.

Looking over the site, Furman noted there are numerous wetlands they must work around and there are currently no utilities on the site, meaning SunnyDayz will need to work with Eversource, the town and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation — considering they need permission to work on Routes 5 and 10 — to ensure electricity and water can be connected to the proposed buildings.

“From a utility perspective, there are basically no utilities in this area,” Furman said. “We are confident we are going to have some fine tuning of the system to do, and we will work with Berkshire Design.”

With the Planning Board and SunnyDayz awaiting a peer review of plans, discussion Monday evening was limited to big-picture questions like traffic management, odor and arranging a site visit.

Furman said they have no concerns about traffic “given the capacity of Routes 5 and 10” and the days of huge openings being well in the past, with so many dispensaries having opened across Massachusetts.

“What we are seeing are those opening days of a heavy influx of traffic don’t exist anymore,” Furman said. “There’s so many to choose from, like package stores.”

Bouquillon said odor will not be an issue either because the cultivation facility is planned for the western side of the site, near Interstate 91, and all air is treated before it leaves the building.

“We are far from the boundary line in all directions,” he explained. “As far as exhaust goes, these facilities are extremely high tech. … It’s all treated, there’s no smell or particulates.”

Before adjourning, the Planning Board requested a visit to the site and another one of SunnyDayz’s facilities in Amesbury. When Tree House Brewing Co. was going through its permitting process, Planning Board member Andrea Leibson said visiting the company’s other facilities gave the board a good sense of how it operates.

A site visit in Amesbury, Bouquillon said, might be difficult to coordinate because of the buttoned-up nature of the cannabis industry, but he will try to set it up. A visit to the Deerfield site, however, will be set up in the coming weeks.

“We’re more than happy to walk with you out there,” Bouquillon told the Planning Board. “You’ve got to have your billy goat shoes to get in there; it’s not an easy walk.”

If permitting proceeds as planned, Bouquillon said Tuesday that SunnyDayz expects to break ground on the project this summer.

“We’re looking at breaking ground July 1 and we’re hoping to be up and running at the end of Q1 2024,” he said.

The Planning Board will reconvene on Monday, March 6, at 6 p.m.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.

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