Weedmaps’ Ghost Management Group inks space at Row DTLA

UPDATED, June 20, 3:25 p.m.: The newest tenant at the Row DTLA is cannabis industry tech firm Ghost Management Group.

Ghost Management Group’s biggest brand is Weedmaps, an online platform for finding cannabis retailers. The Irvine-based firm is taking 115,000 square feet of office space — the three top floors — at the Arts District complex, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Ghost Management joins Adidas, the Dutch co-working firm Spaces and the advertising studio WC+A at 777 S. Alameda Street.

Weedmaps is popular with cannabis enthusiasts in L.A., but it highlights L.A.’s nagging problem with unlicensed shops. Weedmaps doesn’t differentiate between licensed and unlicensed shops, which means users won’t necessarily know if they are buying from an unlicensed seller.

California ordered Ghost Management to stop advertising unlicensed shops last year, but authorities have used it to identify unlicensed shops as recently as this Spring, when L.A. County sued a property owner in South L.A.

The Row DTLA was developed by Atlas Capital Group and Square Mile Capital and has 1.3 million square feet of office space, along with 65 retail spaces. It’s an adaptive reuse project of a wholesale produce market built in the early 1920s.

It’s one of many office-retail projects the Arts District. Right now Continuum Partners is working on a 107,000-square-foot office and retail complex near the L.A. River. Further south, Lowe Development is working on a 100,000-square-foot space.

CBRE’s Chris Penrose, Jeffrey Pion and Michelle Esquivel represented Atlas and Square Mile. Newmark Knight Frank’s Ryan Harding and Mark Gardner repped Ghost Management. [LABJ] – Dennis Lynch 

Correction: A previous version of this story listed Doug Francis as CEO of Weedmaps. In March he was named Chairman of Weedmaps’ Board of Directors. The CEO is Chris Beals.