Green Horizons co-founders Michael Meade and Carlos “Los” Arias were surrounded by outstretched hands and an outpour of enthusiasm as they stood together below their towering, state-of-the-art greenhouse structure that opened in Coachella, California, in May.
The $65 million project has spanned eight years of planning, designing, dealmaking and construction, and unlike the slew of other huge cannabis farms that have come and gone during California’s initial adult-use years, Meade and Arias posit Green Horizons is ushering in a new era of Golden State cannabis.
“We have stayed true to our commitment to build something important and global in scope,” Meade says. “We eschewed the temptations of the Cannabis 1.0 wave, rejecting offers from Canadian players, being ‘rolled up’ into go-public schemes on the Canadian Stock Exchange, and instead remained focused on our vision.”
The co-founders’ vision for Green Horizons was deceptively simple: Develop the real estate; grow craft-quality cannabis on an incredible scale; design a compelling CPG strategy. Each step would be laced with intricate details that required meticulous execution. Plus, Meade and Arias would also need to raise millions of dollars to fund the project.
The May 16, 2024, ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the fruition of their Phase I efforts — a 101,800-square-foot production facility, including 60,500 square feet dedicated to flower, a 13,500-square-foot nursery and a 13,500-square-foot headhouse, all of which work in concert to produce up to 35,000 pounds of craft cannabis flower annually at unprecedented low costs. The company has an additional 900,000 square feet of fully entitled, shovel-ready real estate to develop at their own pace. For the remainder of the year, the facility will be producing white-label products and selling bulk cannabis, and will also debut its first in-house brand, SOL, an intention-laden homage to the Coachella Valley.
On the precipice of disrupting the industry, Green Horizons is making its debut in a very different market from when the project began, and that too was by design.
Patience and Planning
The Green Horizons project took eight years to complete, but it wasn’t without a deadline.
“In studying the regulations, we developed a go-to-market strategy that surgically synced the development of the real estate to the expiry of the state’s provisional licenses,” Arias says. “Our third-mover ethos became ‘the turtle will win the race’ in California.”
California’s provisional licensees were given five years to become compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act. Leading up to the deadline for large cultivators, which passed on January 1, 2024, roughly 50% of active, state-licensed growers went offline as they were unable to meet the CEQA requirements.
“We took a meticulous and reasoned approach,” Arias says. “Compliance is expensive and market dynamics made it challenging for operators. Thirty million square feet of canopy went offline.”
The CEQA deadline was the ticking clock for Green Horizons. It gave Meade and Arias, a lawyer by training, crucial time to structure the business, and while Arias was busy developing the company’s craft-at-scale cultivation model, Meade was hard at work spearheading the real estate development that would give the company an incredible edge over the remaining competition. The two work seamlessly in tandem across the board, cross pollinating at every turn.
Develop the Real Estate
Although Coachella is widely recognized as the home of the annual Coachella Valley Music Festival, the festival is actually in Indio and the festival’s namesake city has largely failed to capitalize on the annual rush of tourists. With this in mind, Meade proposed a plan to the City of Coachella in which the city could capitalize on a substantial, globally branded cannabis zone with Green Horizons as its pioneering occupant.
Meade purchased 32 acres of Coachella desert land in 2016 and led its rezoning efforts. During development, the property grew to 38 acres in total. With disruptive low COGS as a foundation, Meade oversaw innovative partnerships, such as the alignment with the Imperial Irrigation District power grid, saving the company 25-30% on its electricity costs compared to the vast majority of growers in the Coachella Valley, who get their power from Southern California Edison; which includes Palm Springs, Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs.
In addition to the cost savings, Meade also struck a development deal with the city for spearheading its cannabis zone and was able to secure a flat tax across the board for the entire development.
“Michael’s work was prescient. He did the heavy lifting in acquiring and positioning the real estate, and guided all other elements endemic to an undertaking of this nature,” Arias says. “We now feel optimally positioned to enter the marketplace with a uniquely designed facility to achieve true craft quality at scale — and to do so on our terms.”
Craft at Scale
The Green Horizons greenhouse is a cultivation beast, purpose-built from the ground up for producing artisanal flower on a colossal scale.
Meade and Arias worked with greenhouse manufacturer NextG3N to build the Dutch-style, mixed-light facility. The commercial-strength structure has full airflow and cooling capabilities when the system is closed, a rolling bench canopy system for easy access and maximized capacity, and is completely climate controlled in the drying, irrigation and propagation rooms. It is topped with a specially curated roof which delivers light diffusion for decreased shadowing effect and the main source of light.
On the irrigation and fertigation side, Green Horizons uses a state-of-the-art dosing system. The system allows the company to develop strain-specific, custom fertigation strategies to deliver the highest possible crop control. The fertigation strategy ventures away from the more customary use of synthetics, and incorporates a custom mix, which would allow for CDFA organic certification. To handle the climate conditions, Green Horizons has incorporated a control system that provides complete control of all the greenhouse equipment, including its light-deprivation system which controls the flowering photoperiod, California Lightworks supplemental lighting, shade system, ridge vents, airflow needs and all climate control aspects.
All of this technology is further aided by the Coachella Valley climate, which provides favorable conditions and increased light year-round for the plants. The arid climate is uninhabitable for pathogens, molds and fungi, and it makes controlling the environmental aspects much easier than humid environments, further increasing the ability to achieve tighter control of the target VPD. Dillon Patterson, Green Horizons’ Director of Operations and a co-founder, has been with the company since 2018 and was intricately involved in the design and build process.
“Part of what makes our facility so special is very specific design elements that harness the natural properties the desert provides, conducive to agriculture while being extremely energy efficient in the facility’s supplemental needs,” Patterson says. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment for years and now its here.”
A Compelling CPG Strategy
A partnership with Tommy Hilfiger’s Star Branding Entertainment gives Green Horizons an in-house, global view of CPG. Green Horizons’ brand strategy is to align itself in the overlapping parallels of fashion and cannabis consumption.
“As cultivators, when we decide what cultivars to bring into the building, we’re thinking about the trends of today and where it is going for the next six to 12 months,” Arias says. “It’s the same with apparel. There’s a void right now with consistency. We have a real supply chain to demand forecast on and that’s a market opportunity.”
The company’s first fashion-cannabis crossover was Boast, a 50-year-old heritage fashion brand that Green Horizons co-owns with Hilfiger. Green Horizons partnered with the brand two years ago and launched its Boast cannabis lines of flower and pre-rolls in Ontario, Canada, in September 2023.
SOL, Green Horizons’ next foray into the parallels of cannabis and fashion, and its core company brand, is an homage to the Coachella Valley’s agricultural roots. SOL cannabis products will launch alongside a full line of conscious hemp apparel. A portion of the proceeds from both the SOL apparel and cannabis products will support the One Acre Project, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving sections of the Amazon rainforest.
“Fashion is such a powerful means of self-expression,” Arias says. “To this end, Green Horizons will incubate myriad lifestyle-driven brands targeted to empower people and proliferate awareness of plant medicine. Cannabis is not a vice. We believe the market for more balanced and healthy products that are accretive to an active lifestyle is markedly underserved.”
‘We can, and we will’
Green Horizons is a confluence of fashion, culture, style and passion all rolled into one business.
Meade and Arias took an unflinching approach in realizing the potential of Green Horizons and found their footing and funding at a time when nearly all investing, especially in a new cannabis business, had ceased.
The company just closed its final $12 million dollar anchor investment in January 2024, as part of a previously announced fundraising. The unique cost structure of the operation, the meticulously laid plans and the business experience of the team were the driving factors. But Arias says the energy surrounding the project is what pushed investors past the tipping point.
“I believe the one dispositive factor is the undeniable palpability of our authenticity and our professionalism,” Arias says. “We do what we say we’re going to do, and as people experience that in real time, it makes them want to go deeper with the mission.”
The Meade and Arias duo’s genuine sincerity is arresting, and it’s due to the shared path they’ve taken through the industry. Meade and Arias were originally introduced in 2016 by a mutual friend who recognized their overlapping interests. At the time, Meade was recovering from leukemia and told Arias how cannabis supported him through his treatments.
“I then had my own bout with cancer in 2017 and was able to lean on Michael for support and guidance,” Arias says. “We formed an unbreakable bond through this period. Our mutual perspective was that ‘facing mortality’ was a gift and felt an abiding conviction that God was teaching us a lesson (independently, and together) to be bold in life and make full use of our time here. Our commitment to each other was to co-create a global platform for wellness, which became the inspiration for Green Horizons.”
Meade says there is simply a “magnetic energy” about Green Horizons, that the level of commitment from its co-founders is inspiring to its investors, partners and employees and making them feel safe. Meade was quick to endorse Arias’ request to find an office space for him to live in.
“We chose an office with a shower specifically for this purpose,” Meade says. “That’s what I call a real partner.”
Arias says living at the office will give him at least one more hour every day that he can commit to nurturing and manifesting Green Horizons’ success on behalf of its shareholders, investors, partners and the communities it touches.
“We can, and we will,” Meade says. “This is the Green Horizons mantra.”