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One of the original six alternative treatment centers officially opened under new ownership on Feb. 22.

Ascend Wellness at 395 Bloomfield Ave in Montclair opened in 2012 as Greenleaf Compassion Center, which was the first ATC to open in the state after the legalization of medical cannabis.

Boston-based multi-state operator Ascend closed on the deal with Greenleaf about five months ago after initiating talks near the beginning of the pandemic.

Chief Revenue Officer Christopher Melillo said that since taking over the facility, Ascend has tripled the amount of throughput it can handle, expanded point-of-sale capabilities, and created an online ordering and reservation system.

“I’m excited to find the high point, we have much more capacity to go,” Melillo said to NJBIZ Feb. 23.

Since closing on the deal and taking over the facility, busy days have brought in “upwards of a couple hundred people,” he said.

Ascend’s grow and process facility is in Franklin, and it has two dispensaries in the works elsewhere in the state.

A post on Ascend’s LinkedIn on Feb. 22 indicated that those locations were planned in Rochelle Park and Fort Lee. That post has since been taken down, and Melillo was unable to comment on future locations.

At the Montclair facility, “the positive feedback from the government officials of Montclair and our current patient base has been overwhelmingly positive,” Melillo said. “We have expanded the product offering, we have optimized the ability to get in and out quickly, and optimized the reservation system, and the responses have been overwhelmingly positive in favor of all the changes we make including the look and feel of the store.”

The 1,500-square-foot facility was built out and designed by Chicago outfit Cannabis Facility Construction, a national, full-service, cannabis design-build construction firm. This is CFC’s first buildout in New Jersey, its 11th state.

Ascend’s grand opening was pushed back a week due to inclement weather, and the date it landed on was coincidentally the day that Gov. Phil Murphy signed the adult-use cannabis law, at long last legalizing the market in the Garden State.

“We are very excited with the updates that came out yesterday. With that being said, we’re still hyper-focused on our current patient population for the medical program. We recognize that’s still the mainstay of our program now. The upcoming regulations are still to be determined. We see many new patients each and every week coming into the program, and we’ll work with the township to determine the best course of action as far as what’s in front of us,” Melillo said.