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| Times Herald-Record
TOWN OF WARWICK – The Hudson Valley’s budding cannabis industry began blooming Monday with the grand opening of a $2 million-plus cannabis site in the Town of Warwick.
After once imprisoning drug offenders, part of the former Mid-Orange Correctional Facility site is now home to Kaycha Labs NY, a state-of-the-art 9,000-square-foot medical marijuana and hemp testing facility, plus other new cannabis-related businesses.
Most are part of the Orange County Industrial Development Agency’s Accelerator, which founded the fast-growing Cannabis Industry Cluster. Local leaders are already hailing the cluster as a promising potential economic hub.
“This (new lab) is a homerun for Warwick,” said Warwick Supervisor Michael Sweeton. “It’s a great story for repurposing the (prison) facility, and it’s going to really jumpstart the CBD and hemp industry in New York.”
The cluster is “a boost for our local (hemp) farmers because it allows them to create value-added products, and for them to be tested in a manner that gives (the region) a competitive edge” to become the state’s cannabis epicenter, Sweeton added.
The Orange County IDA is a nonprofit that attracts and retains businesses with economic incentives such as tax breaks. Its Accelerator incubates new firms and speeds nascent firms’ growth.
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The new Warwick lab “allows quicker turnaround times for farmers and manufacturers to ensure the readiness and effectiveness of their products,” said Laurie Villasuso, the IDA’s CEO and one of the Accelerator’s leaders. “Prior, many companies sent their samples out of state or to the New York State lab, which was overwhelmed.”
Both the Accelerator’s cannabis cluster and Kaycha Labs NY, an affiliate of privately held, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Kaycha Labs, were established last year.
Besides the new lab, the local cannabis cluster also includes Fusion CBD, Hemp Farms of NY, Honey Buzz and Farm Body. Separately, the medical cannabis maker Citiva Medical LLC also has a facility on the former prison grounds.
The Accelerator’s cannabis cluster has already created 30 jobs, its leaders said. And, a year ago, the Accelerator’s leaders estimated that if New York legalizes recreational marijuana, the cluster could create 200 jobs for the cultivation, extraction, production and research of the medicinal cannabis compounds such as cannabidiol, or CBD.
Other than the state’s Wadsworth Center lab in Albany, Kaycha Labs NY is one of just two, along with ACT Laboratories near Schenectady, with state permission for cannabis potency testing, according to state officials. Pending state approval, the Warwick lab also will conduct tests on pesticide and bacteria levels.
Marco Perone, 55, of Warwick, is the principal owner and co-founder of the Kaycha Labs NY branch. He said he’s hoping to take over a hefty share of the cannabis testing currently done by state labs, and that his local lab has huge growth potential.
“If (the state Legislature) ever passes a recreational marijuana law, the lab will explode overnight, and we’ll probably double or triple in size,” Perone said.
daxelrod@th-record.com
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