Farmland sprouts business park

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This article was published 30/09/2019 (2177 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The men behind a new business park just outside Winnipeg hope it will attract firms looking for shovel-ready land close to the city.

Tom Kleysen and Shawn Alwis launched Phase 1 of the McGillivray Business Park at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday. The park is at 3600 McGillivray Blvd., just southwest of Winnipeg’s city limits in the Rural Municipality of Macdonald, which levies no business taxes.

Kleysen and Alwis started acquiring farmland to build the project in 2007, with Kleysen as the primary financial backer. The 33-acre Phase 1 site is part of a larger 160-acre parcel that the business partners hope to develop over the next 10 to 20 years.

The project to date represents around $10 million in investment, Kleysen said. When fully built out, he believes it will represent around $500 million worth of capital investment.

“We’re basically facilitating, or creating the capacity, for existing business to grow, who might be outgrowing their existing sites,” said Kleysen, who thinks the business park could also attract companies from outside the province.

“We think there is some significance in the scope and value of the project.”

To passersby, the new business park might look like little more than vacant land with new roads running through it. But under the surface is a land-drainage system that leads to a new storm-retention pond. Sewage and water service are ready to go and electric and gas lines are being installed. The business park will be serviced by high-speed internet cable from both Shaw and Bell MTS.

“We’re very excited to be able to present a premier offering in the market. We’d like to provide a site that continues to grow in value over time, and that continues to maintain, with our design standards in place, the look and feel of an attractive and functional business park,” Alwis said.

“We’ve added a number of value-added benefits through our construction plan, and I think there will be a lot of lot owners that will benefit for many, many years based on the structure and the type of site that we’ve set out.”

The 18 initial lots start at $475,000 per acre for lots sized larger than one acre, with some smaller lots available for less. The site is zoned light industrial, which Alwis said makes it suitable for many uses.

“Everything from commercial mixed-use-type buildings that are multi-tenant — it could be somebody that needs a retail front with some warehouse out back,” he said.

“It could be electricians or plumbers that are looking for their own space with mostly warehouse, it could be some light manufacturing, light industrial-type users, and it could also be what I’d call destination retail — folks that want proximity to major centres but don’t necessarily need to be right in the forefront with their company name.”

Through their affiliated property holding company T2K Enterprises, Kleysen and Alwis plan to develop one of the lots into a commercial mixed-use building, as well as a high-end storage facility.

“Basically, (it’s) for those individuals with ‘too many toys,’ is the term we use,” Alwis said. “For boats, or cars, those types of items that need to be stored in a higher-end facility — nice floors, storage racks, options and perhaps even lifts within each storage locker.”

Once Kleysen and Alwis sell around three-quarters of the Phase 1 land, they plan to develop and sell the remainder of the 160-acre site. Kleysen believes the land could be enticing to an information technology business in search of a campus, or e-commerce firms seeking room for warehouses and fulfilment centres.

“As more and more of our shopping habits gravitate in that direction, there is going to be a requirement for more and more fulfilment centres,” he said.

Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Blaine Pedersen praised the new business park during remarks at Wednesday’s ceremony.

“Manitoba’s open for business, and we really appreciate the investment that comes from private industry, and this is just a super example of that,” he said.

solomon.israel@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sol_israel