Source: The Standard
Business is booming in Grimsby these days.
Economic development officer Frank Miele said there have been eight commercial/industrial expansion projects or beginnings of new developments so far in 2024.
“It means jobs and taxable assessment,” Miele said during an official groundbreaking Thursday for Vermeer Canada’s new headquarters on Iroquois Trail near Bartlett Avenue and the QEW.
Vermeer Canada is the Canadian industrial dealer for Pella, Iowa-based Vermeer Corp., a manufacturer of industrial and agricultural equipment.
Miele said Vermeer is one of several businesses spending an estimated $35 million on new or expanded operations and bringing 90 jobs to the community.
He said he’s expecting a bigger year in 2025 with five large projects in the works.
“In the next year and a half, I think we’ll see over $100 million of (industrial/commercial) investment,” Miele said. “And what’s more important, over 1,000 new jobs.”
The 2025 numbers include a $50-million-plus industrial park on South Service Road near Fifty Road by Anatolia, a Vaughan-based company that builds and rents industrial buildings.
Grimsby’s economic development officials are forecasting more than $4-billion-worth of development within the next decade, including the new GO train station on Casablanca Boulevard near the QEW.
At the Vermeer site, construction of a $5-million, two-storey building is expected to begin in a couple of weeks and be completed next spring.
The 1,300-square-metre (14,000-square-foot) facility will house the company’s administration staff and two service bays to support the large construction and urban environmental equipment it sells.
“It’s rewarding to us, as economic development officials, to see a greenfield investment like Vermeer,” Miele said.
Vermeer Canada president Chris Burelle credited the town’s economic development staff for helping move the project through the approval process.
“I think without them, it would have been a much slower process,” Burelle said. “It’s important that towns have economic development people to help entrepreneurs like myself bridge the gaps that exist between the town and our self-interest, so to speak.”
Burelle said the company’s Grisby site will have about 25 employees.
Mayor Jeff Jordan said investments by Vermeer and other businesses are good for the local tax base.
“It’s just another little bit of getting that tax ration off the homeowners and back to commercial, which are happy to pay their fair share,” Jordan said.
Rebecca Shelley, executive director of Grimsby and District Chamber of Commerce, said the new investment sends a positive message about the town.
“What it does, it tells other businesses including small and large that Grimsby’s worth investing in, that Grimsby’s worth calling home,” Shelley said.