DeLAND, Fla. — A $100 million dollar investment is set to bring hundreds of high-paying jobs to the city of DeLand.
Cookies, a cannabis product company out of California, is building its Florida headquarters there.
The facility will be located off U.S. Route 92, and is the first minority-owned business to get one of the state’s less than two dozen medical marijuana treatment center licenses.
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There are only 22 of these licenses available. The company said they see this as a sign of progress because while they are the first, they will not be the last minority-run cannabis company to come here.
“It’s about progress,” said Brandon Johnson of Cookies. “These licenses are very hard to come by; there was only five originally. There’s 22 now, not all of them are operational.”
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The facility will be housed inside a 400,000-square-foot former warehouse for the Brunswick Corporation.
Johnson said the company is looking to hire 400 people for jobs ranging from cultivating to packaging and management positions.
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The company would not specify how much the jobs would pay, but said it would be above the area’s median income.
The company’s $100 million investment is also the largest commercial investment in the city’s history. It did not say specifically when it plans to be up and running, but it could be by next spring if the approval process goes smoothly.
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