Hartford Business Journal

14 Hartford Business Journal • May 18, 2015 www.HartfordBusiness.com CT marijuana grower seeks $13M for NY facilities West Haven medical marijuana manufacturer Advanced Grow Labs is seeking $13.2 million from inves- tors to start producing and selling the drug in New York. Advanced Grow wants to create a marijuana grow- ing facility and four dispensaries in New York state, said David Lipton, managing partner of the company. New York approved medical marijuana in July and is currently seek- ing applications for growers and distributors. Connecticut approved medical marijuana in 2013 and currently has more than 3,600 patients using the drug. Advanced Grow only has one grow facility in Connecticut, where it produces the drug in flower, food, and oil forms, and then ships it to dispensaries run by other companies. In New York, Advanced Grow has the chance to be both a grower and a seller, although the state only allows the drug in an oil form. All of the medical marijuana facilities in Connecticut had to seek private investors — much like Advanced Grow is doing with its $13.2 million capital raise in New York — because traditional banks have shunned the industry that still is illegal in the majority of states. — Brad Kane REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK McGarry: Reprise 'Back To The City' tour Michael T. McGarry, a city resi- dent and former Hartford council- man who sits on the city's Zoning Appeals Board and is one of its most outspoken advocates, is pitching a reprise of a tactic employed decades ago to get more outsiders to consid- er living in the parts of the city aside from downtown. McGarry, whose firm Hartford Blooms leads garden tours around the city, says Hartford urgently must find ways to stem its declin- ing property values, particularly in the historic West End, before its next scheduled property revalua- tion in 2016. For a city grand list already heavily weighted with residential properties, McGarry explains, a revaluation that affirms that values have fallen would almost certainly force the city to raise its mill rate, thus property taxes, putting even more financial pressures on prop- erty owners. One way to address that, he said, is to band together the city's varied business, civic and nonprofit inter- ests to sponsor regular tours of its key destinations and landmarks, but in particular its neighborhoods and their varied selection of styles, amenities and pricing. A similar thing was done, McGarry said, back in the mid- 1970s, to try and kick-start inter- est in buying and occupying many of the houses and buildings aban- doned when some residents fled following city race riots in the mid-to-late 60s. Known as the "Back To The City'' tour, sponsorship in the form of vol- unteers and paid support came from area Realtors associations, the then city chamber of commerce, major insurers, banks and other corpo- rate and civic leaders, among oth- ers, McGarry said. "Everybody was doing it back in the '70s, trying to get people back into the city,'' he said. It worked, said McGarry. After taking the tour back then, he and his wife left Ansonia, from where he commuted daily to a job in Hart- ford, and bought a house in the city's West End. — Gregory Seay Advanced Grow Labs operates a marijuana growing facility, similar to the one shown above. P H O T O | C N N The panache of 'Spectra' vs. 'Plaza' A name has to carry and convey the right gravitas, especially when it's one of the biggest commercial building-to-apartment conversions to date in downtown Hartford. Closing in on a revised June 15 opening date, the New York developers of the 190-unit, for- mer American/Sonesta/Clarion Hotel building co-anchoring Constitution Plaza ultimately decided their initial choice, "On The Plaza,'' was lacking. "We didn't think 'On The Plaza' did it justice,'' said Jeffrey Ravetz, principal in New York co-developer Girona Ventures Inc., "while Spec- tra is reflective of what its image is going to project. It's going to be col- orful and have a chic kind of feel to it. We just wanted something with a little more panache to it.'' Girona and its development co-partner, Wonder Works, also are working on bringing some retail tenants into 4,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space, plus 500 square feet more on an upper floor. So far, no takers for the space, but Ravetz said the landlords are pursuing a list of potential ten- ants, among them an art gallery, furniture retailer or a sports reha- bilitation clinic. — Gregory Seay JOIN US June 8th at TPC RIVER HIGHLANDS in Cromwell! The Commercial Real Estate Alliance of the Greater Hartford Association of REALTORS® (GHAR) would like to invite you to the 2015 Greater Hartford Open Golf Tournament (formerly known as the Brokers Hackers Open) on Monday, June 8th. Enjoy a fun day at TPC River Highlands! Call Gina at GHAR to register today: 860.561.1800 Colliers International www.colliers.com PAC Group www.pacgroupllc.com LAZ Parking www.lazparking.com Greater Hartford Association of REALTORS® | 433 South Main St, West Hartford | www.gharonline.com | www.facebook.com/GHARpage 11:00 a.m. Registration | 12:00 p.m. Shotgun Start Special Thanks to Our 2015 Presenting Sponsor: Net proceeds will benet: Journey Home is a non-prot organization that leads the eort to end chronic homelessness in the greater Hartford area. Journey Home seeks to provide a path toward independent, fullling and productive lives, which ultimately benets the individuals, their communities, and society as a whole. Special thanks to the Hartford Business Journal and the 2015 Hole Sponsors: New England Retail www.newenglandretail.com Goman + York www.gomanyork.com Murtha Cullina www.murthalaw.com Grunberg Realty www.grunbergrealty.com Special Thanks to Our 2015 Cocktail Sponsor:

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