London Lands $600 Million Maple Leaf Foods Plant
 

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...nWNHBgn_Fy_Eg4

60,000 sq metre plant to be built on Wilton Grove Rd near Highbury, starting in the spring with a 2021 opening and almost 1500 jobs. The company is also consolidating 3 other plants from St Marys, Brampton and Toronto into this location.

Great news for London after so much bad news with Kellogg's, Ford and Caterpillar exits.

Hopefully UFCW doesn't screw it up.

Hopefully some improvements to Wilton Grove Rd come out of this. Maybe also expedite the Highbury Overpass rebuild.

Good news for a change.

A development such as this will prompt the LTC to expand and improve service in the area, which is long overdue.

It might also be the push needed to sway city council towards not scrapping the BRT project.

Good news for London, but this is a net lose of jobs for Ontario.

Is it though? What about all the construction jobs that this relocation will bring, as well as all the other developments that this will attract around it.

I'm sure if you look at just how many people worked at the 3 closed factories vs this 1 new one, that the 3 old ones probably had more total employees.

There is so much more to it than just that, for example, who knows how much longer those factories would have been operating anyways considering they all needed significant upgrades and repairs. On the other hand, Maple Leaf wouldn't be investing this money if they didn't plan on keeping this factory running in London for the foreseeable future.

Not sure why all the negativity about this (specifically on the Free Press Facebook page). Are they supposed to not consolidate and operate efficiently, preserving those jobs and the company's future? If ML had decided to rebuild at one of the 3 existing sites and close the other 2, people there would be saying this is awesome and totally downplaying the negativity from the other cities. And those employees have a couple years to plan out what they want to do and negotiate with the company on transfers to London if they want.

Also this is about a 150 net job loss, where the 3 plants are about 1600, compared to the 1450 this plant will start out with. No reason to think they won't grow the numbers at this plant though. They will be looking for any way to maximize the production capacity in that big an investment.

Construction jobs are nice to support, but really they're part of the cost of building a project.

That said, people minimizing the impact of this are only looking at it from a very narrow point of view. Maple Leaf's consolidation and technology modernization reduce total employment compared to the older sites, sure (same thing happened when they consolidated operations at their recently built meat processing plant in Hamilton). But as it improves productivity, and perhaps scales up production above the previous level, the impacts along the supply chain would lead to a larger positive economic impact for Ontario and likely some local spinoffs in the London area.

Also, consider that the food industry is stable and grows as population does, and Ontario is a growing province and Canada is growing too. Had this been transferred to a different province or out of the country altogether, it would have been a loss for Ontario. But the investment is a lasting one, and not as affected by trends in globalization and trade as other industries, nor the whims of blustery foreign leaders. You're quite right ML wouldn't be doing this if they didn't have the long run in mind.

This is great news for London. For Ontario too.

I was going to post something very similar, well said.

Very good news for London

This is really great news and helps solidify London`s position as an agri-business centre. Agri-business also tend to me more long term developments and employers as any food business never suffers from the unpredictability of other sectors.

Hopefully London Transit really improves service to the area. It would be a shame if the protesters constantly outside Cargill (former Cuddy) near the airport had to walk too far to the new place lol.

This is great news. The last 5 years London economy is doing very well. Unemployment is at record low. A lot of new companies are expanding and moving to our region. This is a good sign for the future of the city for years to come.

If they do they need to expand Bradley. I say it like a broken record but it really needs to be widened, traffic on Bradley after wellington has been horrible for the past decade and a bit, and it makes me mad they go and widen Southdale and want to widen it past Wonderland. I drive down Bradley everyday since my job is in that industrial area off of Adelaide, and I always get stuck behind someone who wants to drive 40-50 Km/h. Not to mention how many accidents I almost got in because an idiot driver is trying to pass everyone before the right lane ends (almost got sideswiped the other day). Especially with Summerside expanding even more, the new pizza plant and now with Maple Leaf moving in, it makes sense.

If Ed and his crew want to cancel BRT then they better widen this road.

Totally agree. I was coming down Highbury and had to get to Consortium Crt yesterday around 1pm. Got off at Bradley and traffic was lined up going westbound east of Pond Mills all the way around the bend and past Newbold. Traffic coming eastbound was lined up back past Adelaide. A couple cars or a truck trying to turn left on to Newbold and all of a sudden no one can get by because the turning lane is so short, and with no advance green, only 1 or 2 can make the left per light. Definitely needs to be widened from Dearness to Highbury at least, preferably to Jackson (ok, preferably all the way to VMP but lets be realistic lol).

Exactly lol, and yeah I wish that too but London isn't that optimistic. Plus I hope they also repave those back roads, I work on Consortium Crt, and those roads are absolutely terrible. Hopefully something is done, I pray to see something like that for next years construction timeline.

Alot of underground service installation work underway on the new Maple Leaf Foods plant site.

There was some pictures posted on either the city or Ed Holder's Facebook from his visit to the site yesterday and it looks like some of the foundation is in.

Here's one of the pictures from the Mayor's Facebook page the other day.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...cdf3683a5e.jpg

Still no steel girders up but alot of cement trucks doing foundation pours this week.

Alot of large sewer pipes on site being installed and footings still. However they haven't started yet on structural steel.