The applicant behind the rejected proposal to bring a cannabis dispensary to the intersection of 31st Street and Park Avenue in Brookfield is back with a goal of bringing one to Ogden Avenue.
Tanya Griffin, the CEO of Water + Trees, a development consulting firm specializing in “high-risk industries” like cannabis and sexual wellness, told the Landmark she’s behind an effort to redevelop the vacant, dilapidated parcel at 9500-08 Ogden Ave. into a dispensary.
A planning and zoning meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 28, at 7 p.m., where commissioners of the advisory group will vote on whether Brookfield should issue a special use permit to allow the cannabis store to open at the property, which is now owned by the village. The commission’s vote is not binding, and the village board will have the final say at a future meeting this summer.
“If we can get the permits pulled and move quickly — we’ve got the architect engaged — we want to get this thing open by November,” Griffin said. “We’ll move as quickly as we all can to pull this together. The [general contractor] is in place, the architect is in place, and we’re ready to go.”
Griffin said she’s working with a new cannabis group for this second potential dispensary after the Laws family, who would have owned and operated Prolific Dispensary at 9046 31st St., lost access to $245,000 of funding in the form of an Illinois social equity loan. The village board voted 4-3 to reject their special use permit application in February after several controversial meetings.
Griffin declined to name the new group, but documents from the upcoming meeting show it to be IC Collective, a cannabis grower that provides products to dispensaries in Illinois but does not yet seem to operate any retail stores.
“This new group is a formidable grower and manufacturer in Illinois,” she said. “They want to come in and build the most spectacular flagship neighborhood dispensary for Brookfield and surrounding communities. … They are known for their exceptionally high-quality flower, pre-rolls and cartridges. We’re going to be giving Brookfield and the communities everyday low prices” due to the company’s vertical integration.
Griffin said IC plans to invest “a couple million dollars” into redeveloping the property at the corner of Dubois Boulevard, which will butt up against the asphalt area immediately east of Imperial Oak Brewing.
“They’re very used to doing these large development projects, so they’re funding the entire project. We’ve got the architect involved,” she said. “We [Water + Trees] are going to build their first store for them and then stay with them.”
Meeting documents say 18 parking spots and an additional accessible spot are planned for the property, exceeding the village code’s requirement of eight. The dispensary’s proposed hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, and 65% of orders are expected to come through online.
Griffin said she worked with Brookfield’s staff to select the new location for a possible dispensary after public outcry bogged down her previous efforts due to its proximity to a residential neighborhood and concerns over parking capacity.
“Brookfield has, in my opinion, an incredible economic development plan and community. When it got shut down over on 31st Street, we immediately got back together and said, ‘How do we solve this problem? How do we bring Brookfield the best neighborhood we can?’” she said. “We ended up over on Ogden with some really cool plans. I don’t know if we’re going to stop at the dispensary. We want to come into Brookfield and do some really good community redevelopment.”
Before Griffin dipped her toes into Brookfield’s waters, the village board in 2023 approved a cannabis dispensary to go in at 8863 Ogden Ave. that would have been operated by The 1937 Group. The project ultimately stalled during construction, and village officials revoked the group’s special use permit in March.
Despite the intense public scrutiny drawn by Griffin’s last attempt to bring a dispensary to Brookfield, she said she’s expecting to see less opposition this time.
“I now understand that a lot of the resistance and where the community was voicing their adverse opinions was with putting it over on 31st Street,” she said. “I’m expecting less now that we have a really good relationship with Brookfield.”
