IMO opinion, doin all that concrete work and building is goin to have way more attention brought to you. You'll have to have pre pour inspections by the city, so you will have permenant plans on file with your local city gov. Concrete guys will not pour without a green tag from the city unless you know the concrete company owner and can get them to do it all on the sly and that really raises peoples attention when ya do that. That's not just one truck either, so every driver of the concrete trucks also knows what your doing, the inspectors, finish guys, electrical, guys, etc....trust me they will know what your building it for, construction, now that's a stoner industry for sure. If your goin to do all the concrete finishing, you must be in the concrete biz already I assume, cuz that ain't no DIY project by any stretch of the imagination, concrete cielings, cribbing supports, floating forms, correct tensil mixes for your verticle and clear span horizontal pours, that's all fun stuff, basements are a cakewalk in comparrison a 5 sided concrete box is easy cheesy comparred to 6 sides. You'll have a backhoe sittin there for a few weeks beside a big hole in the ground waiting for concrete to dry, pass final inspection, and backfill to your walls......
20ft and 40ft containers are being buried all the time as a root cellars around here or striaght up tornado shelter, it is just the most cost effective structure out there plus I live in "Tornado Alley" basically so everyone is tornado concious and they don't flinch when a shelter is goin in.
Containers are all over out here in agro country, it is the cheapest, fastest, weather tight structure available. I can see three from my backyard in other properties around as we speak. They are cheap, under 2K, and as far as a root celler, the same argument holds, your building a root cellar but the other thing is with a container, your done in a day, done, buried, and no one will see what's goin on or what you did...your goin to have months of costruction on a concrete structure and that will give everyone that wants to the opprotunity to ask what your doing. Concrete is outragous right now as well, your probably going to spend 10-15k on concrete alone with months of planning, permits, form work, finish out etc, just poured a little under 12 yards of concrete awhile back and that was roughly 4 grand for the concrete only on a 25'x25' pad only, no walls, no cieling...containers are under a grand and your done, delivered and ready to go. I have been in construction for most of my life and know concrete inside and out, belive me I had the same thoughts about building one myself but once you go through the drill there is no comparison at all between the two.
At least where I am at, a container wouldn't even raise an eyebrow, but you break ground on a concrete underground super structure and everybody and their dog is goin to want to know what your up to. You can take ccontainers with as well, they are portable so if for any reason you have to move or move your grow op, you just hooh up and go.
Anyways, you should look real hard at the containers, your opening up pandoras box with everybody in town involved ultimately and a container only the delivery driver even knows where is at and you can move it after the fact if ya want to.
Tex