Business park proves a huge success

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This article was published 27/06/2023 (858 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In 2018 when their 280-acre industrial park north of Inkster Boulevard in CentrePort was just an empty field, the principals at Whiteland Developers were giving themselves eight years to sell it out.

It turns out they did it in less than five years.

BrookPort Business Park, on the west side of Brookside Boulevard, is now completely sold out with more than 50 companies now moved in or in the final stages of doing so.

Sam Sidhu, president of Whiteland, figures that by next year every lot will have been built.

“One of the great things about the project is that all the land has been sold to end users,” he said making the point that none of the land was sold to investors or land speculators.

That’s a little surprising considering how much the value of the land in that northwestern part of the city has gone up over the last few years.

In 2018 when the project was first being marketed, land was being sold for $385,000 per acre. It’s now up to $700,000 per acre.

The entire CentrePort area has become a hub for the transportation and distribution industry.

Truck dealerships are grouped in CentrePort — including a brand new 75,000-square-foot Freightliner dealership — trucking companies, distribution and warehousing and other logistics operations are locating in the area where CentrePort Canada Way provides a direct link to the Perimeter Highway and the Trans-Canada Highway.

“It’s astounding how much momentum is happening at the inland port,” said Carly Edmundson, the new CEO of CentrePort Canada Inc.

Edmundson, who returned to CentrePort after a four-year hiatus in the real estate industry, said CentrePort is materializing into what the area was set up to do.

“It’s a domino effect,” she said. “Investment follows infrastructure. So once you start to have all the things you need to have shovel-ready land — the servicing, then the highway and a clustering of services that support many other companies in similar industries, it certainly ups the value proposition.”

Sidhu figures the purchasers who bought land in BrookPort have invested about $150 million in the region and there is more to come.

Whiteland kept three parcels of land for its own development of multi-tenant industrial buildings and has another two in a smaller 70-acre Whiteland development on the other side of CentrePort Canada Way, called InksPort Business Park.

Sidhu and his partner, Paul Jhand, the CEO of Whiteland, believe that just because they’ve sold out their project, does not mean demand has subsided.

“Projects like these are creating real opportunities within the community and generating significant economic growth in Manitoba,” said Jhand, noting they have capitalized on the affordability of the Winnipeg market compared to other Canadian cities.

And they continue to be bullish on the Winnipeg market. Whiteland has a couple of residential and commercial developments east off McPhillips Street north of Inkster Boulevard that are just getting underway.

Currently there are about 2,300 acres in various stages of development within the CentrePort footprint, including the billion dollar CentrePort Rail Park project, a 665-acre development project that will be subdivided into parcels ranging from about seven to 45 acres in size. Construction equipment is on site and preparation of the land has started.

Sidhu and others have credited the RM of Rosser — and CentrePort staff — for expediting development with permitting on a fast-track approval process.

Ken Mulligan, the new reeve of the RM of Rosser, noted that over the past five years the rural municipality has issued more than $380 million in development permits for more than 2.2 million square feet of industrial development in CentrePort.

“Dozens of new companies now call Rosser home and there continues to be significant interest from the market,” Mulligan said. “We look forward to welcoming more businesses to Rosser as new lands develop.”

Edmundson said demand for modern and flexible industrial space within the capital region of Winnipeg has shown no signs of slowing down and is expected to continue. In addition to CentrePort Canada Rail Park and InksPort Business Park, other major projects underway at the inland port include Steele Business Park and West Creek Industrial Park.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca