Cannabis not a cash cow | A glut of office space | Greenlight Greenery greenlit

Welcome back to the BBJ's LinkedIn Weekly Edition! I'm Digital Editor?Jess Aloe, bringing you the top business stories from this week, plus what's going on in Boston's tech economy.?This week...

The cost of cannabis

Rob DiFazio , a cannabis entrepreneur with dispensaries on the North Shore, estimates that he generally pays double what other businesses would for the same space.?

“Building our cultivation site, we pay roughly $14 per square foot in rent a year,” said Difazio, CEO of CNA Stores Inc. . "Whereas someone else that's sharing 30,000 square feet of that building is paying $7 a square foot."

Despite a widespread perception that cannabis entrepreneurs are raking in the profits, the industry faces plenty of unique burdens, from restrictions on advertising to prohibitively high taxes and real estate costs, to myriad other regulatory hurdles.

One of the chief obstacles involves simply finding the real estate to open a cannabis business.?

Read more in this week's cover story by Cassie McGrath .

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What else happened this week:

CCC greenlit Greenfield Greenery

After months of controversy, the Cannabis Control Commission has approved the final license for Greenfield Greenery LLC , a Western Mass.-based cannabis cultivator with ties to chair Shannon O'Brien . An investigation cleared O'Brien of wrongdoing in a rules violation probe. Read more.

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Here's how TD Garden's new naming rights deal stacks up

Bruins and Celtics fans don’t have to worry about getting used to a new name for their teams’ home arena any time soon: TD Bank has agreed to a 20-year naming rights extension with Delaware North , the owner of TD Garden . Find out how the deal compares to others here.

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It’s been 20 years since there’s been this much office space available in Boston

Real estate firms published fourth-quarter research reports this week, and?availabilities are now higher than when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, according to one firm, Colliers.?Other firms are using similarly serious superlatives to describe the city’s office market. Get the details.

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Warren, Pressley press for answers on Bay State?College

The situation at the for-profit college — where a significant drop-off in enrollment has sparked?staffing upheaval and program cuts?— requires “immediate action by its accreditor,”?according to a letter?from U.S. Sen.?Elizabeth Warren?and U.S. Rep.?Ayanna Pressley?sent to New England Commission on Higher Education President?Larry Schall?Tuesday. Read more.

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Motherboards and molecules — this week in Boston's tech economy:

Boston insurance tech firm Duck Creek Technologies was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in a deal worth $2.5 billion.?Get the details.

EQRx is no longer focused on 'radically' cheap drugs. Here's what it's doing instead.

Report: 2022 was the second-best year on record for biotech VC in Mass. Read more.

On the Petri Dish this week: CureVac gets a new CEO in Alexander Zehnder, MD, MBA , Astellas Pharma taps Selecta Biosciences for $350 million deal, and Moderna looks at a new price tag for its Covid vaccines. Get the details here.

This week on Form D Friday: Redpoint Global Inc. , Alzheon, Inc. | Preserving Future Memories , and Ensoma all reported fundraises. Find out how much they raised here.

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Finally...

A Business Journal and Seven Letter Communications poll found that employees are most likely to leave their job if their employer doesn’t stand by their values — and they're more likely to walk for that reason than for not receiving a raise they felt they deserved.

The new BBJ-Seven Letter poll, overall, showed that compensation is still the biggest factor in whether employees stay where they are, but respondents made clear that company culture is a factor.

Grant Welker has?much more on the finding here.?

This Weekly Edition was compiled by Jess Aloe. This is a new feature from the Boston Business Journal, and she wants to hear your thoughts. Questions? Comments? Concerns??Send them her way.