Northwest Arkansas Medical Cannabis Group building dispensary in Fayetteville February 13, 2019 By Cannabiz Staff Valentine Holdings LLC, doing business as Northwest Arkansas Medical Cannabis Group, is finalizing architectural plans for its new dispensary facility at 3390 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Fayetteville. Don Parker II, an owner of the dispensary, said it has no estimated timeline for opening, but the contractor has already been selected, and construction will begin as soon as plans are approved. Parker, an attorney at the Jonesboro law firm Parker Hurst & Burnett, owns a 1 percent stake in the dispensary, and his wife, Lynn Parker, also a lawyer, owns a 32.3 percent stake. Other owners include Jonesboro cardiologist John McKee, 1 percent, and his wife, T. Michelle McKee, 32.3 percent; and car dealer and apartment complex owner Ray Osment, 33.3 percent. Parker and Osment also own Jonesboro Luxury Rentals together. NWA Medical Cannabis Group received the second highest dispensary score in Northwest Arkansas’s Zone 1. It also won licenses in Northeast Arkansas’s Zone 3 and Northwest/North Central Arkansas’s 4, but it chose to locate in Zone 1 because after “looking at the demographics and the projected growth in the area, Fayetteville felt like [it was] a better economic decision,” Parker said. The site of the dispensary has two existing structures on it, according to Parker, but those will be torn down before building the new facility. He added that initial plans for the facility in the dispensary’s application “called for a footprint of about 7,500 square feet.” Parker said the dispensary hopes to be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but this may adjust after patients begin visiting the facility. While Parker said he doesn’t anticipate deliveries becoming a large part of the dispensary’s business, he added that “the market will tell us what’s going to work.” NWA Medical Cannabis Group is also licensed as a “grow” dispensary, and Parker said the dispensary will set aside space for growing, cultivating and extracting from the maximum 50 mature plants allowed. “I don’t know how much [cultivating and extracting] we will initially do,” Parker said. “We are going to focus on getting the dispensary opened and making product available to Arkansans with medical marijuana cards. We intend to offer whatever is produced by cultivators.” Valentine Holdings LLC also has an ownership stake in the Delta Medical Cannabis cultivation facility in Newport, but Parker said NWA Medical Cannabis Group will be selling product from every cultivation facility in the state. “We are in business of running a successful dispensary,” he said. “If product from another cultivator is selling better than Delta Medical [Cannabis], we’ll sell whatever the patient demands.” Parker said NWA Medical Cannabis Group’s “level of service” will help it stand apart from other dispensaries, as well as the experience patients will have when they visit the facility. The dispensary has not begun hiring employees and won’t be conducting interviews until the facility is closer to opening, but Parker said it is accepting resumes. Those interested can mail resumes to Attn: Don Parker, Northwest Arkansas Medical Cannabis Group, PO Box 1733, Jonesboro, Ark., 72403. Originally published on ArkTimes.com.
