A little more than four months after the Chowder Pot IV restaurant served its final plates of calamari, scallops and fried sole, its Hartford property is on track to become a marijuana dispensary and growing center.
Massachusetts-based Insa is buying the 57-year-old restaurant on Brainard Road, and plans to combine the property with the former Restoration Lighting Gallery parcel next door.
The company plans to build a cannabis cultivation and processing center of more than 80,000 square feet on the properties, along with a roughly 7,000-square-foot retailing operation.
Insa, which currently operates primarily in Massachusetts, Florida and Pennsylvania, this year is expanding into Connecticut and Ohio.
Insa received a provisional cultivation license from the state in mid-2022, and has been moving forward with expansion plans since then.
It acquired the former Restoration Lighting Gallery parcel at 167 Brainard Road earlier this year for $2.5 million, and intends to combine that land with the adjacent Chowder Pot IV tract at 165 Brainard. In addition to the roughly 28,000-square-foot restaurant, that Chowder Pot IV property has a parking lot with more than 120 spaces.
Insa told the city in November that it plans to remodel the restaurant and build a roughly 55,000-square-foot addition to create a modern growing and processing center.
“Insa’s operations in Massachusetts, Florida and Pennsylvania utilize some of the most advanced technology in cannabis cultivation and manufacturing,” the company wrote, and “include automated irrigation systems, vertically stacked growing benches, light-emitting diode lighting, advanced building control systems, carbon and high-efficiency particulate air filtration, and de-ionization systems.”
Insa told the city the systems are designed to “maintain a sterile and controlled environment to prevent pests and disease and promote plant health without disruption to the community.”
It said the stages of growing will be staggered to provide for sequenced blossoming, harvesting and processing.
At the same time, Insa is also looking to get into the New Haven market. It is planning to remodel part of the main auditorium of the former Long Wharf Theatre on Sargent Drive as a cannabis dispensary. In an application filed with the city in June, the company said it would begin construction in September and would complete work in about a year.
The company is leasing 10,800 square feet of the theater, and plans to use about 6,300 square feet for its dispensary.
In its application, Insa describes itself as a medical and adult use cannabis company licensed in several states.
“Insa has extensive experience in retail, cultivating, manufacturing and dispensing high quality medical and adult use cannabis products,” it wrote.
In Massachusetts, Insa maintains headquarters in Chicopee and dispensaries in Easthampton, Avon, Salem and Springfield.