CRANBERRY TWP — Cranberry will soon get its first medical marijuana dispensary.

Preliminary and final land development plans for The Healing Center were approved Thursday night by the Cranberry Township supervisors.

The 10,680-square-foot, one-story building will be located at 270 Executive Drive on a 2.6 acre lot, said Ron Henshaw, Cranberry's director of planning and development services.

Christopher Kohan, co-founder of The Healing Center, said the facility will ultimately be an integrated health care facility that includes not only medical marijuana but other services that will benefit patients.

Once the dispensary gets off the ground, Kohan hopes to add things like massage therapy, reiki, yoga and drug and alcohol therapy to the list of services, pending state Department of Health approval.

“I kind of like to describe them as a health type of spa meets an Apple store,” Kohan said. “You're going to learn a lot about medical cannabis, how to medicate, how to medicate for certain medical issues.”

The Healing Center is opening three dispensaries, one in Monroeville and one in Washington as well. All the locations were chosen because of the high concentration of patients, access to major highways and access to public transportation, Kohan said.

Although construction has not begun yet on the building, Kohan said The Healing Center hopes to open sometime in the spring. Mostly the opening depends on when the marijuana growers and processors will have product available for patients.

“Because until there's medicine for patients, we don't really have a reason to open,” he said.

Act 16 of 2016, the state legislation allowing medical marijuana, allows it to be sold in forms of pills, oil, topical, vaporizer, nebulizer, tincture and liquid. The law also prohibits dispensaries from being built within 1,000 feet of any school or day care center.

Four medical marijuana dispensaries were approved over the summer by the Pennsylvania Department of Health to open in Butler County. Two are in Cranberry, one is in Butler and one is in Jackson Township.

To use any dispensary, patients must have one of the 17 serious medical conditions as established by the state and have a recommendation from a registered doctor. Patients must also apply for a medical marijuana ID card and pay the application fee.

Each patient will be checked in to the dispensary and their ID card and doctor's recommendation will be verified, Kohan said.

The Healing Center will employ a pharmacist and nurse practitioner, Kohan said, in addition to patient care representatives who can help make recommendations and inform patients about the best type of product to use.

“I think a lot of people get caught up on the recreational side of this. This is not what that is,” he said. “This is a serious health care facility that employs serious health care professionals.”