Chris Webber adjusts his Detroit cannabis plan
Green Market Report has an update to a story we shared back in 2021. It’s republished from Crain’s Detroit and Dustin Walsh reports that Chris Webber is scaling back the planned $175 million marijuana development in southwest Detroit:
The NBA Hall-of-Famer and University of Michigan Fab 5 basketball star had planned an industry training complex, a 180,000-square-foot cultivation site, consumption lounge and dispensary at 2599 22nd Street south of Michigan Avenue. Webber’s Players Only broke ground on the site in September 2021 and originally planned to finish the first phase of the build-out in March 2022.
But market conditions that sank marijuana prices by more than 56% between breaking ground and now have kept Webber from advancing on the project. He said the company still has plans but is scaling them back.
“The cannabis industry has really shifted in Michigan,” Webber told Crain’s. “Since the landscape has changed, we’ve had to adjust because we would not be smart to go with that plan.”
Webber said prices remain too low in the state to follow through on planned investment.
“Where do the prices settle? The bottom of the ocean?” Webber said. “I am from Detroit and I love the city, the environment and the people. But this would not be the best time for the community or us in Detroit to have a profitable outcome.”
Webber mentioned that companies that invested big in the state suffered from the price crunch, and he worried the $175 million investment would sink Players Only.
…Webber said his company has no plans to abandon the Detroit site and will still develop it, likely with a smaller footprint.
“We’re not going to abandon that space and we think the new plan will invigorate the community,” the former NBA star said. “But there will be adjustments. The numbers aren’t the same.”
With the success of Hot Box Social in Hazel Park and the popularity of venues allowing cannabis consumption in the immediate area, the MCT fervently hopes that a cannabis lounge remains in the ultimate plan!
Lots more in the Green Market Report & check out Players Only at playersonlycannabis.com. and at
