Excess Grower

Michigan's standard grower classes cap plant counts (Class A: 100, Class B: 500, Class C: 2,000). The excess grower license is not available to a new applicant: the predicate is holding the requisite number of Class C grower licenses first, after which the excess license authorizes cultivation beyond that combined cap. In practice the stacked capacity is usually run across a multi-building campus under common ownership rather than inside one structure, which is why these operations show up as industrial parks rather than single warehouses.

From a real estate standpoint, excess grower operations require correspondingly large industrial buildings with heavy electrical service, HVAC/dehumidification capacity, and often significant water and wastewater infrastructure — building suitability review for these facilities looks much closer to industrial manufacturing underwriting than to typical retail cannabis site selection.

Because excess growers represent concentrated capital investment in a single facility, they are also the most common source of large distressed cannabis real estate assignments when an operator over-expands into an oversupplied wholesale market — a dynamic that has been a recurring driver of Michigan cannabis receivership and distressed-asset activity.