With dreams of turning the Olds area into the Silicon Valley of pot, cannabis producer Sundial Growers opened its flagship, 500,000-square-foot building on Wednesday — one week before recreational use of the drug is legalized.

Sundial CEO Torsten Kuenzlen was at the ribbon-cutting ceremony that saw locals pack into a small, top-floor room at the Olds facility, where he spoke about his aspirations for the company. “We believe cannabis is a consumer-goods industry just like any other, and it doesn’t feel like that yet and it very quickly will be that,” said Kuenzlen, who hopes Sundial will have product hit Alberta shelves in December.

“When you look at the management team that we have assembled, they really are cross-functional with experience that I think really allows us to play to where the puck in the cannabis industry is going to be.

“I think it’s the beginning of a boom you’re going to see here in Olds. If everyone keeps doing what they’re doing, then this corridor will become the Silicon Valley of cannabis, and that will be an exciting opportunity for all of us.”

Sundial Growers CEO Torsten Kuenzlen speaks on Oct. 10, 2018.

Only months into construction of the highly secure facility, Sundial is already beginning to grow cannabis. Inside one of the 140 state-of-the-art cultivation rooms, 4,000 cannabis plants already show signs of budding.

Down the hall, nestled into a room no bigger than a typical living room, sat another 14,000 plants early in their stages of development. Once ready, the new plants will be transferred to the cultivation room where they begin their blooms.

A Sundial Growers trim room is seen on Oct. 10, 2018.

Employees work to individually control rooms by tweaking their humidity and temperature, and control the nutrients they’re given.

“I’m totally ecstatic about Canada being the first G7 nation to actually go forward with full legalization — it’s an incredible opportunity and it’s great for the country,” said Gregg Wigeland, director of cultivation for Sundial, adding the company is ready to mitigate supply and demand concerns.

“We’re ready for 2019 for our corporation to enter the market when we are fully in operation and have a stockpile of product ready to carry the market forward. At that point in time, I think we will put a major dent into that problem.”

Gregg Wigeland, Director of Cultivation at Sundial Growers, tends to cannabis plants at the company’s facility in Olds, Alberta Wednesday, October 10, 2018. 

Once completed, the facility will be capable of producing 100-million grams of cannabis annually. Their goal, however, is to produce a quality product — as if they were a craft brewery for pot. Teasing a future product, Wigeland said one strain they will produce in the future will be called Sweet Jesus.

“We differentiate ourselves in growing the highest-quality cannabis, growing it at significant scale,” said Kuenzlen. “When you look across the landscape here in the industry, there are a lot of small growers that are producing good cannabis but in very small quantities. There are a couple very large companies and I would say their growing methods and some of their cultivars are probably not suited for the highest quality we are shooting for.” Sundial expects to employ roughly 500 people at the Olds facility.