DIXON – A medical marijuana cultivation center is coming to Dixon.
Gov. Bruce Rauner's office wasted little time picking up where the Pat Quinn administration left off, and announced Monday which applicants would be allowed to grow and sell medical marijuana in the state through the Medical Cannabis Pilot Program.
The awardee in Illinois State Police District 1, which patrols Lee, Ogle, Whiteside, and Carroll counties, is GTI Clinic Holding, LLC, parent company of Green Thumb Industries.
Click here to see the list of awardees.
“GTI’s single focus, throughout this process, has been ensuring Illinois patients have access to the care they need," GTI founder Ben Kovler said in a news release. "In the end, the real beneficiaries of today’s announcement are those patients who will soon have access to the medical care they need. Their care is, and will remain, GTI’s number one priority.
“GTI is ready to begin work to bring jobs and economic benefit to Rock Island, Dixon, Oglesby and Mundelein, and communities throughout each region."
GTI's agreement with the Lee County Industrial Development Association for a lot in the Lee County Industrial Park hinged on the company being awarded the license for the district.
In September, the Dixon City Council unanimously approved a proposal from IPP LLC to buy an 8.85-acre piece of land in the Lee County Industrial Park for $320,000.
The offer from IPP was wasn't contingent on the company being given a cultivation center license.
GTI also bid on the lot IPP bought from the city. But its $531,053 offer was contingent receiving the cultivation center license. The city decided to sell to IPP in order to ensure at least one development.
Mayor Jim Burke was ecstatic to hear about Monday's announcment.
"It's wonderful," he said. "It'll be interesting to see what happens with Don Levin [and IPP LLC], because he said if he didn't get the license he was going to build a building and put up a warehouse."
GTI was also awarded a cultivation permit in Rock Island and Oglesby, and a dispensary permit in Mundelein. High-scoring cultivation center applicants were allowed up to three permits in the state.
Twenty-one cultivation center permits will eventually be handed out — one for each Illinois State Police district, with the exception of District 15, which patrols the state's tollways. Eighteen cultivation permits were awarded Monday.
The state received 158 applications for 21 permits available for medical marijuana cultivation center. The state also received 211 applications for dispensaries; only 60 will be allowed statewide. Fifty-two were awarded Monday, GTI being the recipient in District 27.
In District 1, the dispensary permit went to The Dispensary LLC.
Cultivation center applicants were required to submit a $25,000 nonrefundable fee; the fee for dispensary applications was $5,000, also nonrefundable. That means the state has made more than $5 million from the application process alone – $3.95 million from cultivation applications, and $1.055 million from dispensary applications.
Quinn's administration said it would issue the licenses by the end of 2014, but the Chicago Democrat did not act before the Republican from Winnetka succeeded him, instead saying that agencies in charge of evaluating applications still had more work to do.
Recently released documents showed that Quinn received recommendations on which businesses should receive licenses, but he did not act on them before leaving office this month.
Rauner's office obtained documents through Freedom of Information Act requests. Emails showed that some high-scoring companies were removed, but with no reasons provided. GTI was one of those companies.
Rauner's legal team conducted a review and, on the advice of Attorney General Lisa Madigan, recommended to the governor that he award the licenses in the list his office compiled.