CANNABIZ
‘A CLIMATECONTROLLED RAINFOREST’: Ashton Harper’s family business creates state-ofthe-art buildings for the medical marijuana industry.
BRIAN CHILSON
A
BUILDING GREEN CONTRACTOR AND SECURITY FIRM DISCOVER MEDICAL MARIJUANA NICHE. BY GRIFFIN COOP
108 SEPTEMBER 2021
ARKANSAS TIMES
new kind of green construction has brought some unexpected business to one Central Arkansas company. HARCO Constructors, a family-owned general contractor in Maumelle, has built two medical marijuana cultivation facilities and three dispensaries. When a third cultivation facility is completed this year, HARCO will have built three of the state’s maximum eight cultivation facilities. The projects have been good for business at the firm, but it’s not something project manager Ashton Harper ever imagined he’d be involved in. “Not in my wildest dreams,” said Harper, son of one of the company founders. HARCO’s first medical marijuana project was the cultivation facility for Natural State Medicinals in White Hall. The project was a learning experience, Harper said. Harper likens the cultivation projects to building a “climatecontrolled rainforest inside a metal building” with technology that can control the temperature and humidity to a fraction of a degree. When state regulators awarded the first licenses for medical marijuana cultivation facilities in 2018, HARCO Constructors was out of luck. None of the applicants who had planned to use them for construction had been awarded a license, but some of the applicants that did receive licenses were impressed with HARCO and heard good things about them from the other applicants. “That kind of got our foot in the door and we hit the ground running from there,” Harper said. Founded by brothers Chuck and Keith Harper in 1985, HARCO is a general contractor with about 25 employees at its Maumelle office. The company takes the lead on construction projects but hires subcontractors to perform nearly all of the trades. As the project manager, Harper keeps a close eye on the timeline and the budget. “The central focus is getting the client in operation as quickly as possible and staying within budget,” he said. The buildings contain state-of-the-art systems for heating, ventilation and air conditioning and have high electrical demands. “These cultivation facilities require quite a bit more juice or power than your typical building would,” Harper said. HARCO has also built the Delta Medical Cannabis Company cultivation facility in Newport, Purspirit Cannabis Company dispensary in Fayetteville, Delta Cannabis Company dispensary in West Memphis and Custom Cannabis in Alexander. Some of the projects have been renovations, while others have been new builds. The Carpenter Farms Medical Group cultivation facility should be completed in two or three months, according to owner Abraham Carpenter Jr. HARCO’s experience in building medical
