[upinottawa]

Welcome to the forum, Habib.

Article from Saturday's Windsor Star. The article is fairly ambiguous as to what company may be setting up shop. Anyone familiar with this building? Too bad these workers (if and when they come) will not be working downtown....

City lures high-tech venture
West-side building expected to be home to business that may employ 500

Dalson Chen and Dave Hall, Windsor Star
Published: Saturday, October 21, 2006

A new high-tech business venture adjacent to the Ambassador Bridge is likely to be announced soon by Mayor Eddie Francis and MPP Sandra Pupatello.

Local developer and property owner Joe Mikhail, who owns a three-storey, 40,000-square-foot building at 2970 College Ave. where the new venture will be located, said "It's an exciting project and this may be the moment when the city begins to diversify its economy at a time when it desperately needs it."

Mikhail said he couldn't confirm the name of the tenant until cleared to do so and added an "announcement should be forthcoming very soon" from the mayor and Pupatello.

"I can say that the building has been fully tendered," said Mikhail, who has owned the site for 10 years.

Another source in the real estate industry says he's heard the business could employ up to 500, but The Star has been unable to confirm that figure.

Francis and Pupatello both declined to confirm the identity of the building's tenants and the nature of the project.

"I can't comment on rumour," Francis said.

"There's nothing that I can confirm. I can tell you that the mayor and I have been working diligently on a number of projects, but there's nothing I can confirm," Pupatello said.

There have been reports from some of the building's former tenants that computer giant Hewlett Packard Canada is already carrying out renovations in the building.

However, an HP spokesman said this week his company has "no plans to open any operations in Windsor."

Mehboob Jaffer, a corporate spokesman for HP, said "we have recently been looking at our real estate holdings and closing and consolidating sites but there are no plans to open an operation in Windsor."

But a local real estate agent said he'd been told that "there's HP staff on-site already."

Don Merrifield Jr., a sales representative with RE/MAX Realty, said "I guess HP is already there, redoing the building."

The multiple-unit structure with a dozen loading bays is adjacent to the McDonald's restaurant on the corner of College and Huron Church Road.

Mikhail said the existing loading bays will be converted to office space.

Built in 1989, the H.T. Bondy building has been home to a succession of customs brokers, freight companies and the Ontario Business College.

In recent years, the tenants have included Thompson Emergency Freight, Arrowhead Expediters, Card Wizard and DSS Wholesalers.

© The Windsor Star 2006