The 1,500-acre , shovel-ready site is the final component needed for Ontario to “lure” the next big electric vehicle or battery supply chain investor to the province, said Vic Fedeli, the province’s minister of economic development, job creation and trade.
In June 2022, the city agreed to purchase about 800 acres as part of this plan, and today, St. Thomas controls nearly all of the 1,500-acre site. Several final land acquisitions have yet to close on the “periphery” of the property Dyke added.The province stepped in late last month to change this. On Feb. 22, it introduced Bill 63, which proposed annexing a portion of the neighbouring municipality of Central Elgin for St. Thomas.
“We can now confidently speak to prospects worldwide that we’ve got an opportunity for them to step in and begin development quickly.” Fedeli would not say whether the province was pitching investors interested in the entire 1,500-acre site, or a portion of it, but said having such a large site “puts us on a lot of lists … we weren’t able to be on previously.”
Given the size of the property in St. Thomas, Dyke said he expects more than one company to occupy it, but he would not write off the possibility of a single large investor. Volkswagen pointed to Canada in December as “one logical option” for its battery subsidiary PowerCo’s first North American battery cell plant, though it stopped short of identifying the country as the only jurisdiction it was exploring.