Three major summer builds for Technoparc Montreal

Canada’s largest research and development park, located in west Montreal, is flush with construction activity this summer after three major projects were announced last year reflecting a total investment of $400 million.

Technoparc Montreal is now aiming to build on its 2015 accomplishments, says Carl Baillargeon, its director of communications and marketing, and it certainly makes it easier to attract new investors with the campus mood so clearly bullish, he adds.

"The slogan that we use is that it was a year of building, so it was one of our most phenomenal years that we have had so far," said Baillargeon. "We are talking non-profit $400-million in investment and 1,000 in new employment. There is momentum."

The technology park, founded in the borough of St. Laurent in 1987, offers a total of 20-million square feet of property dedicated to five technology sectors, with aerospace providing the most jobs (53 per cent of the almost 6,300 on the site) followed by information technology, life sciences, cleantech and business services, according to Technoparc’s 2015 annual report released in June.

Investors must pledge to devote a certain percentage of resources to research and development. The top five current employers are Bombardier, Genetic, Ciena, Amdocs and Hewlett-Packard.

"All three of the new firms are distinct," Baillargeon said. "One of them is a North American headquarters, Green Cross, and they are coming here to become Canada’s only intravenous immunoglobulin manufacturer, so that makes it very exceptional, it is a new chapter in the pharmaceutical industry in Canada.

"The companies that come into the Technoparc are not companies that say, oh well, we’ll build hockey sticks. That is our main focus, to attract companies that are into research and development."

The Green Cross project is the biggest of the new builds. The firm is spending $315 million on a 225,000-square-foot biopharmaceutical plant that will be the new headquarters of Green Cross Biotherapeutics Inc. Groundbreaking was June 1, 2015.

Baillargeon said staff may start to move in by the end of this year, and Green Cross says commercial production of the new product is expected to begin in 2019 with a capacity to process one-million litres of plasma annually. Investment support has come from Investissement Quebec and Korean National Pension Services.

Also under construction is a $70-million plant from ABB, an energy and automation firm that creates systems for the public sector as well as industry, transportation and infrastructure.

The 300,000-square-foot facility will enable ABB to centralize its operations, bringing its 700 Montreal-area employees under one roof. Construction began last October. Baillargeon says move-in could take place at the end of the year. ABB is seeking LEED Silver certification.

The third project currently underway is a 43,000-square-foot data centre valued at $40 million from the communications and IT giant Videotron. The 4Degrees data centre is designed to host and process business data and will have an available load of 16 megawatts for servicing clients from across Quebec and even internationally, Videotron announced last fall.

Groundbreaking was in September and Baillargeon says occupancy is expected this fall.

Members of the construction team listed for the project include NFOE et associes architectes, the engineering firm Kelvin Emtech and builders Decarel.

Meanwhile, a major regional infrastructure announcement this spring could provide a further significant boost to the innovation centre, Baillargeon said.

Right now, transportation to the sprawling park is through city streets or by autoroute 40 or else via the subway and a 15-minute bus ride. That could all change. In April, the Caisse de Depot’s infrastructure funding arm CDPQ Infra unveiled a proposal for an automated electric train system that would link with existing transit systems through 67 kilometres of new light rail transit.

The Caisse has pledged $3 billion in funding for the megaproject and said the financial structure also requires $2.5 billion from the provincial and federal governments.

It’s early days, but Baillargeon notes that Technoparc Montreal would be one stop away from Trudeau airport and 12 to 15 minutes from downtown Montreal.

"The first thing people will see when they get off an international flight or a North American flight would be the Technoparc," he said. "It is like a welcome card, instead of seeing an old industrial area, here it is with brand new buildings and renovated buildings."

The marketing arm of Technoparc Montreal is not only active looking to entice major players like Videotron, ABB and Green Cross to build on the eight-million square feet of property remaining to build-out, said Baillargeon, it’s also building the tech sector from the incubation stage. He talks about taking start-ups from a handful of employees through initial growth and reaching the point where they need a full floor in an office building and then their own plant. Further evidence of growth at the Technoparc is the Albert Einstein Centre that topped out at 100-per-cent occupancy in 2015 and a second one is now in operation.

The Technoparc entity is the largest of six landowners with property remaining to be developed. The builder Broccolini owns 10.4 per cent, according to the most recent annual report.