Basic Info
History
Jobs and Brownfields
This is a map of the planned development. The central forest and wetland is left as a marketing tool to promote the development, and that the forest is not being cut down leads some people to consider the HCBP a good industrial park. Upon digging deeper into the expected impacts on the land, the HCBP would not be preserving the forest, but rather sentencing it to a slow death due to the significant degradation of the surrounding land.
This is from the City of Guelph's website. It is useful to see how they promote the HCBP as 'The Natural Place for Business,' and what features of the development they choose to highlight in attempts to attract tenants.
A local environmental advocate and member of LIMITS compiled this timeline of the HCBP development project, including associated studies dealing with the Hanlon Creek Watershed. It is very useful to understand some of the impacts on the land. Highly recommended reading if you want to understand how this came to be.
Peter Cartwright
"I'm not sure at this point where the economy is going.... But we are taking care to have sufficient industrial lands available when it turns around."
- Peter Cartwright in the Guelph Mercury, Realtors plan for recovery, March 13, 2009
Peter Cartwright
Peter Cartwright has led the City of Guelph's Economic Development and Tourism department since 2001, and has been one of the main people working on the HCBP over the years. He is a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners, a Registered Professional Planner with the Ontario Professional Planners Institute and a Professional Land Economist with the Association of Ontario Land Economists.
Interestingly, he is both promoting the HCBP as a location for biotechnology companies, and is on the board of directors of Guelph Partnership for Innovation, a "consortium of life science (biotechnology) stakeholders with the vision of making Guelph one of the top life science centers in North America."
Cooper Construction
"It seems Guelph is the next logical choice for big-box industrial distributions centers."
- Bill Cooper, Cooper Construction's leasing manager, in the Guelph Mercury, Developers ready Guelph land for more distribution centers, April 22, 2008
Hanlon Business Park East-West
Cooper is a construction and development company based out of Toronto. They are hoping to develop 113 acres of the HCBP. They also own land in the Hanlon Business Park across the Hanlon expressway; they refer to both simply as the Hanlon Business Park East or West. Cooper has this to say about the site:
Located in south Guelph, Ontario, the Hanlon Business Park provides development opportunities unaffected by Greenbelt restrictions. With low development charges and land costs, and unparalleled access to transportation corridors and the vast consumer markets of central Canada and the United States, this is the future of distribution in the Greater Toronto Area.
Belmont Equity
Another company involved in the HCBP is the BCC Group of Companies, which owns Belmont Equity. They are a commercial real estate company based out of Mississauga. Their core business objective is, "to acquire various office, industrial and retail properties that can be built on and sold to user, developer and landlord clients." They generate "revenues of approximately $100 million annually." They are marketing 800,000 square feet, or a bit more than 18 acres, of the Hanlon Creek Business Park.