Meet Our Sister Company: Sungrown Studio
Most people don’t know this about us, but we have a sister company. Her name is Sungrown Studio, and she is just as style-forward as Coddington Design. She also creates interiors that are supportive, nurturing, and inspiring. But these interiors aren’t for the high-achieving homeowner. Sungrown Studio is a design firm that serves a different industry: cannabis dispensaries.
How it all began…
At heart, I’m an entrepreneur. Once Coddington Design was up and running successfully, I started looking around for my next big idea. Retail design in cannabis appealed to me for several reasons:
- Rapid Industry Growth. The cannabis industry is fast-growing and full of opportunities. As of December 2021, 18 U.S. states and Canada have legalized adult-use cannabis. Meanwhile, medical cannabis is now legal in 36 states. As this number continues to increase, so does the market for businesses that can serve this industry.
- Changing the Conversation. I grew up in Humboldt, where there was never a stigma around cannabis, and I knew that design could help brighten its future in other places, too. Instead of spaces that feel suspicious and shady, I imagined designing vibrant, welcoming dispensaries that would support healing, respect, and inclusion. I love the challenge of changing the conversation one dispensary at a time.
- The Ability to Support Diversity. I soon learned that the booming cannabis industry has some cracks in its infrastructure. To get a license to open a cannabis dispensary, you need to-code floor plans, a dispensary design, and a ton of paperwork (and a fee, of course). Seems fair. But even with these documents in order, it’s still highly competitive. I discovered that women, BIPOC, and other underserved groups routinely get passed over (or pushed out of the market later) by larger corporations.
“When I saw an opportunity to use design to lower the barrier to entry for small business owners, diversify the industry, AND help these businesses succeed in becoming profitable, opening Sungrown Studio was a no-brainer.”
3D Rendering of a high-end consumption lounge, designed by Sungrown Studio
What does Sungrown Studio do?
There are two stages of dispensary design: pre-licensure (aka, design required to get licensed) and post-licensure, when you’re physically creating the space. Here’s how Sungrown Studio helps with each…
Pre-Licensure: To help hopeful dispensary owners win licenses, we create compliant floor plans and renderings. Not only are we up-to-speed on meeting regulations (I’m talking about those construction documents), our design renderings are so photorealistic that they will quickly stand out from the competition.
Each space is designed to…
- Create a sense of brightness, safety, and belonging
- Place products strategically to maximize sales
- Make the experience immersive, fun, and memorable for customers
- Compete with corporate-funded dispensaries
- Tell stories and invite buyers to participate
- Integrate meaningful tech and energy efficiency
- Brighten the overall future of cannabis with vibrant design
A photorealistic 3D rendering we created for a client pre-licensure.
Once a license is awarded, we then help clients with the next phase of bringing the design to life, post-licensure. This would also apply to someone who already owns a dispensary and is looking to redesign or rebrand it for increased profit.
Post-Licensure: For clients that have dispensary licenses, we create the official design, selecting precise materials, colors, display cases, creating elevations, and providing a final Shopping List. Owners can use these plans and purchase links to precisely create the design.
Elevations for specific placement and space planning
Final Design: Bright, welcoming, and focused on health
Dispensary design isn’t so different from the way we design our clients’ homes to create a specific feeling and experience. The ultimate goals might be different, but the design strategy is the same. And the results? Equally powerful to the people we serve.
Sungrown Studio helped this husband-wife duo bring their dream dispensary, Flora Terra, to life.
How has Sungrown Studio impacted Coddington Design?
These two businesses exist completely independently of each other, but my work with Sungrown Studio has had some unexpected results. Sungrown Studio is a 100% virtual service, and we’ve designed dozens of dispensaries from afar and watched our clients bring them to life using our design plans.
After this happened several times, we realized — there is no reason we can’t offer our services virtually at Coddington Design, too. So many homeowners these days, especially the high-achieving women we serve, want to be involved in their own design. If they have a design plan they can follow, they’re happy to carry out the design themselves. And who am I to say they shouldn’t?
We decided to implement a remote full-service design offering for Coddington clients at the beginning of 2021… and it has been a huge success.
We can now help clients nationwide receive the same high-end results as they would with our hands-on service. And it was all inspired by Sungrown Studio. So whether you’re interested in dispensary design or designing your own home, we’re happy to make it an experience you will enjoy and find successful.
Cheers,
Melanie