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Canada’s Pot Industry Is Hungry for Real Estate

  • Demand for growing facilities forecast to surge fivefold
  • Country’s industrial vacancy rate is already at record lows
Medical marijuana plants grow in a climate controlled growing room at a facility in Smith Falls, Ontario, Canada.

Photographer: James MacDonald/Bloomberg

Canada’s industrial real estate sector is as hot as it’s ever been and the legalization of recreational pot will only add to the demand.

The country’s eight biggest weed companies will require more than 8 million square feet of space for growing marijuana by 2020, up more than fivefold from current levels, according to a report from brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle Canada. The estimate, which excludes logistics and distribution centers, would be about the size of Amazon.com Inc.’s Seattle headquarters, which houses about 40,000 workers across multiple buildings.