KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI — Just over two years after Kalamazoo County’s first retail cannabis business opened its doors, a new cannabis retailer is taking over behind its counter.
Cloud Cannabis Co. will officially open its seventh Michigan dispensary, and first in Kalamazoo County, on Friday, April 1 in the space previously occupied by KKind, at 521 E Mosel Ave. in Kalamazoo Township.
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Cloud, which also operates recreational dispensaries in Muskegon, Traverse City, Gaylord, Ann Arbor and Utica, as well as a medicinal dispensary in Detroit, recently purchased the KKind brand and is in the process of transitioning both the Kalamazoo retail space and Big Rapids retail space to Cloud Cannabis.
Cloud also acquired KKind’s 70,000 square-foot cultivation facility in the sale.
“We’re extremely excited to turn KKind into Cloud and to be a part of the Kalamazoo community,” said Michael Leporowski, who serves as the retail operations manager overseeing all Cloud locations. “This is just the tip of the iceberg here in Michigan and there’s so much more room to grow here.”
Cloud Cannabis is also opening a store in New Baltimore in the next month and has plans for three to five more recreational storefronts across the state by year’s end, Leporowski said.
The Kalamazoo Township store, like other locations, will offer curbside pickup as well as customized retail shopping experiences after individual consults. In mid-April the store will also begin to offer delivery service as well, something it is slowly rolling out at all Cloud locations across the state, he said.
“We’re here to provide the best customer experience possible,” Leporowski said. “We want to take away the mysterious in cannabis culture and really help make it mainstream.”
Cloud has kept on all 12 KKind employees who were employed at the time of the sale, and Leporowski said he’s excited to have them all on board as the company continues to hire new employees at this time. Retail employees all start at a base pay of $14 per hour, which equates to about $20 per hour after tips, he said.
The 3,800-square-foot, former KKind space has been transformed into a clean looking white showroom in which all of the product is separated into different categories such as “energize,” “focus,” “sleep relief,” “calm” to help customers feel confident in what they are getting.
Cloud sells its own partner brands, Wonderbrett and Mitten Extracts, but offers a variety of other product lines, priding itself on providing cannabis patches, edibles, flower, concentrates and cannabis beverages that their customers want at an affordable price, Leporowski said.
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“We work with a lot of different cultivators out there to get the best premium products that we possibly can,” he said. “We are very aware that Kalamazoo is a competitive market but we hope with our customer service, we can gain a foothold here and improve upon the KKind brand that was already here.”
Having established relationships with guests is important, he said, and at the heart of the Cloud brand.
“It’s been taboo so long, you want to to somewhere where you trust the staff,” Leporowski said. “We aren’t pushing minimum spends. We are pushing for customers to get what they need. It’s a real relaxed atmosphere here, both for those who work here and for those who come in.”
Cloud will host a ribbon cutting at 11 a.m., Friday, April 1. The first 500 guests will receive gift bags filled with a variety of cannabis items and all guests will have the opportunity to make penny purchases, win prizes, raffles and other giveaways, as well as join Cloud’s loyalty program.
Cloud’s hours are from 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. Sundays. While the dispensary is for recreational customers, all medical card holders will receive 10% off every purchase. For more information, visit cloudcannabis.com/.
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