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Portland may be about to see what the next generation of marijuana facilities looks like.

A group of entrepreneurs is proposing to build an indoor and outdoor marijuana growing facility, a retail storefront, a research and development building and a bed-and-breakfast on what is now a 3-acre auto-wrecking yard in North Portland.

鈥淭he idea out there that the business owners have is to create more of a lifestyle center for cannabis,鈥� said Rahim Abbasi, an Abbasi Design Works principal who is designing the project.

The project, Saints Cloud, is designed for cannabis users to lounge, take classes on marijuana-related topics and even exercise. Several yoga studios already combine vinyasa and cannabis.

Visitors could watch marijuana being grown in the cultivation facility through a window in the retail shop to showcase the plants. They could then take a class on growing their own before staying overnight on the property.

鈥淭hey’re thinking the McMenamins of the cannabis industry,鈥� Abbasi said, referring to the pioneering Portland-based chain of brewpubs, restaurants and hotels.

Abbasi has requested an early assistance meeting with Bureau of Development Services staff to hash out some issues such as limits on retail space in the heavy industrial zone.

Saints Cloud is part of a boom in marijuana cultivation that is beginning to affect the industrial market in the Portland area.

Marijuana growers are in many cases competing with other industrial users for older, cheaper warehouse properties. Cannabis business owners have avoided newly constructed industrial properties because of their higher price and the difficulty of securing a loan because of their association with marijuana.

Another proposal was submitted in February for an indoor growing facility at 7916 S.E. Foster Road. The proposal came from 6D LLC, an entity registered to a Damascus address. The Foster Road parcel is occupied by a 50,000-square-foot retail building.

鈥淎 lot of the marijuana growers are swooping up the older, cheaper industrial product and they’re kind of pricing out these sole proprietors who might be running a different type of business,鈥� said Brian Mitchell, a broker at Macadam Forbes.

Financing is another obstacle for marijuana growing facilities.

鈥淭hey obviously have to pay cash if they’re buying it,鈥� Mitchell said. 鈥淵ou can’t have a loan on a building or the bank will call the note due because it’s federally illegal.鈥�

Saints Cloud’s Jesce Horton, one of three partners in the venture, said they’d had a tough time finding an appropriate property in the city.

鈥淲e’ve been searching for quite a while to find somewhere to cultivate,鈥� Horton said. 鈥淯ltimately, an old attorney friend reached out and said there was an owner who was interested in selling.鈥�

The property, at 1040 N. Commercial Ave., is currently Rose City Auto Wrecking. Raoul Calderon of West Linn is listed as the property owner in city records. The Saints Cloud team has an agreement in principle to purchase the property, Abbasi said.

The three partners have one major investor and are seeking to raise more money for the project, Horton said.

The partners want to allow customers to use marijuana on the property.

鈥淭here are not very many places where consumption is allowed, so hopefully we’ll be able to develop a property where that won’t be a problem,鈥� Horton said.

The property is adjacent to railroad tracks and 14-acre Farragut Park. If the property is developed as envisioned, guests will have views of the park in their eyes and the scent of cookies in their nostrils.

鈥淭here’s a Nabisco factory right across the street that has the whole area smelling like cookies every day,鈥� Horton said.

Saints Cloud targets recreational marijuana users. The development would be phased, with the cultivation facilities in place first. A greenhouse would be erected along with the warehouse.

The property tells a story of industrial Portland. It appears to have once been a cattle barn, Abbasi said, before the auto-wrecking yard took over. Cattle were likely transported on the adjacent railroad tracks. Soon, perhaps, it will be a marijuana-themed resort.

Horton is no stranger to the cannabis business. He’s part-owner of Panacea Valley Gardens, a marijuana grow facility in the Columbia River Gorge; and a Portland dispensary, Panacea, at 6714 N.E. Sandy Blvd.

Horton is also chairman and co-founder of the Minority Cannabis Business Association, a nonprofit that seeks to lower barriers to entry in the industry.

Abbasi said he’s seen an increase in design work from the marijuana industry, but nothing like the Saints Cloud proposal.

鈥淭he whole goal in their minds was to be the first one to do something like this,鈥� he said.

In many cases, Abbasi’s clients are new to property development and its many complications, such as seismic upgrades and sprinkler installations.

鈥淚t’s been an interesting environment to work on because a lot of these guys have no experience with development or building,鈥� he said.

The regulatory environment means marijuana entrepreneurs are forced to be flexible, Abbasi said.

鈥淭heir operations are constantly changing because the rules are constantly changing in terms of what they can and can’t do,鈥� he said.

Some rules, such as allowing businesses to operate without a certificate of occupancy as long as they’re working toward one, have eased, he said.

Yet the specter of marijuana’s federal status continues to loom over the burgeoning industry. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been a vocal opponent of marijuana legalization, describing the drug as 鈥渟lightly less awful鈥� than heroin.