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Amazon announces their intention to invest in Hamilton
In August of 2020, global e-commerce giant Amazon announced their intention to invest in nearly 1 Million square feet of industrial space in Hamilton.
The first investment will be a 855,000 square foot Fulfillment Centre adjacent to the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. The second involves a 50,000 square foot Delivery Centre in Stoney Creek near the Queen Elizabeth Way. In total both investments will bring approximately 1,500 jobs and adds significant growth to Hamilton’s Airport Employment Growth District. Construction is expected to be completed in 2021.
image property of The Hamilton Spectator
EllisDon
EllisDon, one of Canada’s largest construction firms, announced their plans to create a state-of-the-art plant in Stoney Creek for steel-ribbed offices and other building blocks.
The new operations will see fully built (framed, drywall, electrical, plumbing, furniture) cubes ready to be assembled on job sites. ED Modular, as it will be known, will be housed at 950 South Service Road in Stoney Creek, a 300,000-square-foot investment creating about 200 jobs.
“We like the idea of being in Hamilton because there are a lot of skilled tradespeople who are eager to do something new.”
Xavier Toby
Director of Prefabrication and Technical Sales
ED Modular
corbec
Quebec firm makes Hamilton its first Ontario expansion.
Quebec steel company Corbec announced their first Ontario expansion choosing a location in Hamilton’s Red Hill Business Park. Their 100,000-square-foot steel galvanizing plant is an approximately $100 million investment and will employ about 110 full-time workers. Corbec’s galvanizing plant will focus on galvanized steel products ranging from bridges, windmills, fencing and farming equipment.
PANATTONI
Panattoni’s initial investment of 250,000 square feet will grow to over 1,000,000 square feet over the next few years.
Greater Toronto Area (GTA) developer Panattoni officially broke ground on a $30 million 265,000-square-foot warehouse directly adjacent to the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. Panattoni purchased the 82-acre site last year for $27 million and will be working in phases over the next few years to develop 1.6 million square feet of goods movement related uses.
Taking on the world
In 2019, L3 Harris, one of the world’s leading aerospace and defence firms, broke ground on their brand new, state-of-the-art Canadian headquarters.
This investment includes 330,000 square feet of research and development, engineering, assembly and office space. By 2021—when they plan to be fully moved in—L3Harris will be home to more than 1,200 employees in Hamilton.
Founded in the West End of Hamilton in 1957 as a camera stabilization system provider, L3Harris (formally known as L3Wescam), has expanded to become a world leader in electro-optical and infrared imaging technologies and system solutions. It has over 4,700 fielded systems and solutions operational across more than 80 countries, and its technologies can be found on more than 200 different platforms across the air, land and maritime domains.
Q4
Hamilton landed a major Fintech investment in December.
Q4, a Toronto software company that provides digital investor relations solutions for major global brands, announced a major expansion of their Toronto operations in to Hamilton. Q4’s new 9,500-square-foot space near Gore Park will see 140 new technology jobs into the city. They also have plans for a second phase of expansion—expecting to add another 7,500 square feet bringing them to 17,000 square feet.
“We see Hamilton being a significant part of our global workforce.”
Dorothy Arturi
Senior Vice-President of People and Culture
Q4
over 5 years
Portland Fuel
Portland Fuel, a UK-based fuel trading firm, set up Canadian operations in Downtown Hamilton.
They originally looked at Toronto for their headquarters, but ultimately felt the location was not the right “image” for their company.
Portland Fuels works with businesses that rely heavily on fuel, such as trucking and transit, to protect them from the volatility of the fuel markets by setting a fixed rate for the commodity. The company also offers extensive analytics to help companies purchase the right fuel products and review their practices to figure out where and how savings can be made and how to generate efficiencies.
“Hamilton just has this energy. There are so many forward-thinking businesses thriving in the city.”
Jon Rosenthal
Director of Operations
Portland Fuels
ACKROO
A significant tech relocation happened in 2019, as Ottawa-based Ackroo moved their Canadian headquarters to Hamilton. Ackroo provides merchants of all sizes a robust, cloud-based multi-currency marketing platform to help attract, engage and grow their customers while increasing their revenues and margins. Through a SaaS-based business model, Ackroo provides an in-store and online automated solution to help merchants process loyalty, gift card and promotional transactions at the point of sale, provide key administrative and marketing data, and to allow customers to access and manage their loyalty and gift card accounts.
Bousfields
One of Ontario’s pre-eminent community planning firms opened a new location in Downtown Hamilton to be part of the growth happening in the core and other parts of the city. They are a firm with special expertise in urban design, planning policy, community design, development approvals, community consultation and project management.
SUCROCAN
The first successful sugar production facility in Canada since 1958, Sucrocan announced the completion of its new granular sugar refinery in Hamilton. This investment will be a big part of Sucrocan’s international operations that currently stretch from Argentina to Canada.
Elektroland
Turkey’s Elektroland, established in 1996 as an electronic PCB repair and reverse engineering center, made their first international investment—opening an office at McMaster Innovation Park. Mechatronic Research and Development (R&D) is the core function of Elektroland and plays a central role in the rapid development and validation of new products and underlying research for all of its protective equipment including Fire Fighting, Explosive Ordnace Disposal (EOD) and Improvised Explosive Device Disposal applications.