Green Peak Innovations plans to add hundreds of marijuana jobs in Lansing

Correction: Green Peak Innovations has facilities inside Harvest Park. The name of the industrial park was incorrect in an earlier version of this story. 

LANSING — Mid-Michigan will soon have more marijuana jobs. 

Marijuana company Green Peak Innovations employs 80 people and expects to add another 120 jobs at its facilities in Lansing and Windsor Township by the end of the year, said Jeff Radway, the company's CEO. 

The company, which includes growing and processing facilities, plans to construct an additional 170,000 square feet of space in Windsor Township by the end of the year. 

Green Peak also plans to open 19 dispensaries throughout the state over the next two years, employing as many as 400 people, Radway said. 

"We'll be a major employer in the area," Radway said. "We'll be a major employer throughout the state of Michigan." 

Green Peak is in the midst of its first harvest of medical marijuana plants and will ship their first round of product this month, Radway said. The company's products will be sold under its Skymint brand.

Green Peak has facilities on Jolly Road and in Harvest Park, an industrial park on either side of Creyts Road in Windsor Township that's billed as the largest marijuana business park of its kind east of the Mississippi. 

Inside the facilities, workers wear hairnets and color-coded scrubs. The marijuana strains grown there have names like Sour Diesel, Super Lemon Haze and Pug's Breath. There are specific rooms for different stages of the plants' life cycles. Each room is climate controlled and has its own HVAC system. 

On Wednesday, Green Peak officials walked members of the media through the stages of the growing and harvesting process. 

“It’s kind of like barbecue — low and slow is the way to go," said Shawn Hanrahan, Green Peak's director of production as he showed off the facility's drying area. "It’s going to take a bit of time to make sure that quality is there.”

Green Peak's facilities have the potential to produce around 30,000 pounds of marijuana every year, Radway said. 

Michigan voters approved legalizing marijuana for recreational use in the Nov. 6 general election.

Radway said the company plans to eventually grow recreational marijuana and could start harvesting the plants next summer. 

"We believe we can largely meet the demands of the state of Michigan," he said.

Contact reporter Haley Hansen at (517) 267-1344 or hhansen@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @halehansen.