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Innisfil loses armored vehicle manufacturer to Barrie

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In Barrie
Jan 30th, 2015
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By Rick Vanderlinde Innisfil Journal

An armored vehicle manufacturer — one of Innisfil’s premier industries — is moving to Barrie so it can build a new factory and add 40 employees

The Streit Group announced plans Wednesday to abandon its 32,000-square-foot location in Innisfil Heights to build a 75,000-square-foot factory in south Barrie.

General manager David Hale said the company considered staying in Innisfil, but was lured to Barrie for several reasons.

“We did look at Innisfil but the main things were the availability of property and the pricing,” he said. “We were looking to build a fresh building.”

Streit has 60 employees at its Innisfil location but will add more skilled jobs when it beefs up production at its Barrie factory, which is expected to be built by October. The company exports most of its armored vehicles to the Middle East and Latin America.

Innisfil Mayor Gord Wauchope said he was disappointed by the company’s decision to relocate. However, he is still optimistic about the town’s ability to attract manufacturers to Innisfil Heights near Hwy. 400 and Innisfil Beach Road.

“I think Innisfil is in a great spot. We are open for business. We need to reduce our development charges to attract employers here. That’s what the town is working on.”

One of Wauchope’s election promises centered on bringing full municipal servicing to Innisfil Heights to help land more manufacturers.

“It’s certainly cheaper per square foot to build in Barrie,” he said. “We need to find a way to get the development charges cheaper here.”

Innisfil’s economic director Marc Seguin said town administrators began working with Streit last June in an attempt to keep the company in Innisfil.

“We did everything possible. We showed them several options to locate here,” Seguin said.

But in the end, Streit’s business case pointed the company to Barrie instead of Innisfil or Bradford West Gwillimbury.

Seguin said talks with Streit never got to the point where offering incentives such as lower development charges were discussed.

The town is now marketing the Streit location in an attempt to find a new employer after the company vacates the Innisfil location next fall.

“We now a have a good vacancy in Innisfil and we are now actively looking for tenants,” Seguin said.

Meanwhile, Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman is trumpeting Streit relocation to King Street near Veteran’s Drive and Mapleview Drive.

“As the city continues to grow, our goal is a diversified economy, one that adds value,” Lehman said.

Since its modest beginnings in a rented garage in the GTA in the mid-1990s, Streit has taken on 300 employees and set up production facilities in Charleston, S.C., and the United Arab Emirates. It also boasts dealerships in Iraq, Lebanon and Nigeria.

Streit came into being in the mid-1990s, the result of a partnership between two recent immigrants – Russian car salesman Guerman Goutorov and Bulgarian mechanical engineer Anton Stefov. They first set up shop in a small rented garage in the Weston Rd. and Finch Ave. area of Toronto, with a contract to build three armoured banking vehicles.

— files from Laurie Watt, and TorStar News Network

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