Plans are in the works for the construction of new industrial and commercial facilities on Steeles Avenue near Winston Churchill Boulevard.
Conestoga Cold Storage is looking to build a warehouse at Steeles And Tenth Line. Just a few metres east of there, gas giant Enbridge is planning to construct an operations centre at 16824 Steeles Ave.
The projects are expected to bring in roughly 450 jobs - 250 at the cold storage facility and 200 or so at Enbridge’s building.
Most of the positions at the gas company’s location, about 160, will be office jobs. The remainder will be their operations staff, who may come and go with utility trucks to repair gas lines and construction sites, said Town planner Greg Macdonald.
No petrochemicals or refineries will be on the site. It will instead function as a place to dispatch work crews and handle day-to-day administration.
Meanwhile, Conestoga - which has facilities across the GTA - is planning to create a large cold storage warehouse.
“They'll be storing cold beverages and other products and they're going to be distributing these food and beverage products throughout the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Quebec and some of the northern United States,” said Town planner John McMulkin.
The two facilities will be, in short, large. The first phase of of Conestoga’s warehouse will be 193,000 square metres. But once all seven phases are completed, its footprint will balloon to a mammoth 618,000 square metres.
The two-storey Enbridge project is expected to be about 58,000 square metres.
While Conestoga’s location is an empty field, Enbridge’s plans will require demolishing an existing building to make way for the new facility and its 194 proposed parking spaces.
Conestoga is hoping to get construction started as soon as possible, which McMulkin estimates will be sometime next year, with the final phase being completed around 2030.
Enbridge wants to break ground next year as well, and Macdonald thinks it will be a relatively quick construction.
“Once they get the full building permit, I can't imagine it would take longer than a year to build this facility,” he said.
