You may have noticed when driving up College Avenue that there’s a new sign on a familiar building: Green Dragon has purchased Elite Organics and Rock ‘N’ Robin’s record store to open a new, eventually larger dispensary. 

The new location — just to the east of campus — opened Aug. 23. Director of Corporate Operations Austin Steeves described their opening as two phases — they’re in phase one of the opening, which he described as just getting the doors open. 

“Now, we are currently under a process called modification of premise,” Steeves said. In this stage, the former Elite Organics dispensary floor is open, while the Rock ‘N’ Robin’s space is being modified and will eventually become one larger dispensary.

“So the phase two would then be turning the old Rock ‘N’ Robin’s space into our Green Dragon store,” Steeves said.

However, regulations make it so they cannot include the former record store floor space until the modifications are approved by state and local jurisdictions. 

“Elite Organics and Rock ‘N’ Robin’s were under … the same owner,” Steeves said. “When she chose to sell the dispensary license — both (medical) and (recreational) — we also had to acquire the front of the store; it was all part of the package.”

“We’re shooting for two months … to be operational in the space,” Steeves said, emphasizing that it’s entirely out of their hands. “We had a location here in Denver that took about a year and a half — because it was a historic building — through the process of just approving me to move a (point of sale system) to the other side of the building.”

“We can take our business model, and looking at that location and the opportunity that we have just started in the Fort Collins community, we really felt that it was a prime spot for us.” -Austin Steeves, Green Dragon director of corporate operations 

Currently, they are in the process of clearing out the old Elite Organics inventory.

“We did take over their inventory,” Steeves said. “(For) some of it, … we don’t currently carry the product or product line, so what we have right now, we’re offering those products at extremely reduced price.”

Now, if you’ve read our list of dispensaries, you’ll know that makes Green Dragon the only brand in Fort Collins with two locations, both of which opened within a year of each other. 

“We really do see an opportunity in Fort Collins,” Steeves said. “We really don’t mind being in the same town and having multiple locations.”

Steeves said they have locations as close as a mile apart, but they still reach different customer demographics. 

Elite Organics did not choose to sell their cultivation license to Green Dragon, just the dispensary licenses for medical and recreational cannabis.

This new store opened during the first slump in recreational sales in Colorado since sales began in 2014. According to the Colorado Sun, taxes off the sale of recreational cannabis were down 21% January through July compared to the same time period last year. 

Green Dragon hasn’t been phased by the slowdown in statewide sales, however. They emphasize a wide selection of products, more edible choices and not having a waiting room are keys to their success.

“We can take our business model, and looking at that location and the opportunity that we have just started in the Fort Collins community, we really felt that it was a prime spot for us,” Steeves said.

Reach Grayson Acri at cannabis@collegian.com or on Twitter @Guy1376.