After Metrolinx angered Thorncliffe Park residents by opting to demolish part of the heart of the community to build the Ontario Line's train yard, a nearby manufacturing business that the agency had hoped to preserve appears to be downsizing anyway.
A few years ago, Metrolinx changed where it planned to locate a new train maintenance and storage facility. As a result, a swath of Thorncliffe Park including community organizations, small retailers and businesses, like a beloved Halal grocery store, were bulldozed, drawing backlash from many who live in the area.
Metrolinx said it moved part of its train yard into Thorncliffe Park, rather than locating it entirely in the nearby Leaside Business Park, to protect hundreds of local manufacturing jobs and potentially thousands more throughout companies' supply chains.
Through discussions with Tremco and another manufacturer in Leaside, the provincial transit agency "learned that a relocation was not feasible for either company and that expropriating the land could lead to the businesses leaving not only the City, but possibly the region of the country entirely," Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster wrote in a June 2021 letter.
"The supply chain and indirect job impact of this would be at least 4-5 times the impact of the direct jobs (estimated impact on direct jobs at 800-900 employees), with very few of the total of the affected direct and indirect jobs retainable or replaceable," Verster added.
Tremco, which specializes in making roofing, sealants, caulking, and waterproofing products, has long operated three Leaside facilities. Recently, one of the properties it operated out of was listed as available for lease to a new tenant.
An online listing posted several days ago shows 50 Beth Nealson Drive is now available for lease starting on Sept. 15 of this year. "Secure your company's next industrial facility," says the listing.
Its listing comes after Metrolinx expropriated a portion of the property and tore down about half of the building that had been there. An almost 42,000-square-foot warehouse remains. The property's current owner has also proposed adding another 18,000 square feet onto the current facility to connect it to one of the other two remaining Tremco buildings, the listing shows.
Tremco's U.S.-based parent company, RPM International, previously owned the properties but sold them months after Metrolinx announced in 2021 where it would locate the Ontario Line's maintenance and storage facility, corporate and property records show. An industrial real estate company bought them, property records show. Tremco continued to operate on the properties' facilities under leaseback agreements that its latest annual report said lasted from Sept. 15, 2021 to Sept. 14, 2024.
As of a couple of years ago, Tremco employed about 200 people in Leaside, among the most of any company in the area.
Before publication of this story, Tremco's spokesperson hadn't responded to questions The Trillium asked them in an email about the company's future in the Leaside Business Park.
A Metrolinx spokesperson wouldn't comment on the company's business decisions but said the agency did not sign any agreements with the company regarding its now-up-for-lease site.
"One of our key priorities when we were determining property needs for Ontario Line infrastructure in Thorncliffe Park was minimizing the project’s impact on local jobs," Metrolinx's spokesperson said.
"We determined that between 800 to 1,050 jobs may have been lost if we had used this site for our project which is why only a small portion of land that was previously occupied by Tremco was acquired. We consulted closely with the City of Toronto on our current plans before moving forward."
The Ontario Line is Premier Doug Ford's government's signature transit project and the most ambitious undertaking ever given to Metrolinx, the province's transit agency. Construction toward the $17-billion-plus 15.6-kilometre rail line has been underway since 2022.
In late 2020, while finalizing the Ontario Line's route, Metrolinx looked to pinpoint where exactly its maintenance and storage facility would go. Leaside Business Park initially seemed to fit the bill, before the provincial transit agency determined the impacts on jobs locating the train yard there would have. It ended up deciding to locate part of the almost 50-acre maintenance and storage facility to the south, closer to the heart of Thorncliffe Park.
"We know projects like the Ontario Line will result in economic benefits for the region, both during construction and once the line is in operation," Metrolinx's spokesperson said in an email. "Metrolinx also anticipates that the entire Ontario Line project will directly and indirectly support over 4,700 jobs per year in construction and supply chain industries."
