The excitement generated by the battery industry creates real estate inflation in Bécancour.
The Société du parc Industriel et Port du Parc Industriel de Bécancour (SPIPB), a Quebec state-owned company, has just bought a large piece of land at a high price from Loop Industries.
The young shoot from Terrebonne aims to recycle single-use plastics. She gets five times the price she paid the previous owner in 2021.
In a notarized transaction at the end of February, SPIPB paid Loop 18.5 million for two lots totaling approximately 890,000 m2. One of them, of 330,000 m2, will have an industrial use. The second plot, 560,000 m2, will be used for conservation purposes.
“What it takes is trying to find the best industrial project for the land we own now,” Industrial Park Corporation CEO Donald Oliver said in an interview.
The GM-Posco factory, under the name Ultium Cam, is under construction. It will make cathodes, one of the two battery poles. Civil work on Nemaska Lithium’s future lithium hydroxide plant should begin next May or June. Lithium hydroxide is used to make cathodes.
Clearing and land preparation work is also underway on a lot north of the A30 (opposite Ultium Cam) for which an official announcement is awaited. We know that Ford (cathodes), Vale (nickel sulphate) and Electra (cobalt refinery) have shown interest in Bécancour. BASF (cathodes), for its part, has an option on a lot in the southeastern part of the industrial park.
In May 2021, Loop had acquired a huge 1.8 million square meter piece of land from the Bécancour industrial park by paying 5.9 million to the Indian cooperative IFFCO, which had had plans to build a urea plant before abandon the idea afterwards.
Loop Industries and its president Daniel Solomita were skilled in this land deal.
The Legault government began speaking publicly about its ambitions for the development of a battery industry in August 2020. Nouveau Monde Graphite announced its arrival in the Bécancour industrial park in October 2020 to produce battery-grade purified graphite . This was followed by an announcement from Nemaska Lithium in June 2021. Announcements from giant GM and BASF cathode material manufacturing plants came later, in March 2022.
“Certainly, there is a change of context in the park with the battery sector arriving and that creates a different momentum”, agrees Mr. Olivier, CEO of SPIPB.
Loop claims to have breakthrough technology that can process PET plastic waste like plastic bottles and packaging so it’s ready to be used again in resin form. Often promised, the commercialization of its technology has constantly been postponed.
From now on, wrote colleague Julien Arsenault last January, the first factory must see the light of day in Uslan, South Korea. Loop has entered into a partnership with South Korean giant SK Global Chemical (SKGC), which owns 10% of Loop.
In September 2022, Loop sold the first portion of its land in Bécancour (930,000 m2) for 12 million to a Boisbriand real estate company owned by Abe Leimzider.
With the 30.5 million collected thanks to the sale of its land in Bécancour, Loop Industries has thus constituted a “three-year reserve” to wait until the next stage.
The Rosefellow company, Mike Jager and Sam Tsoumas, are working hard. It is leading 10 projects under construction for a total of 370,000 m2 worth 2 billion. And that’s just the beginning.
“Starting this summer, we will have new projects for another investment of 2 billion,” assures Mr. Jager over the phone.
Earlier this week, the developer announced the construction of a campus of three “zero carbon” industrial buildings in Kirkland, along the A40 and Saint-Charles Boulevard. The area of the buildings totals 56,000 m2 for an investment of 300 million, including the purchase price of the land.
The land was owned by the Town of Kirkland, which got $67 million for its 121,500 m2 (1.3 million square foot) lot.
Rosefellow has also just acquired a 75,000 m2 lot at the southwest corner of A440-A19 in Laval. The sale price of 38 million was paid to the seller, the Kohn family, which is linked to Balcan Packaging.
In an overexcited industrial market where rents are tripling and the value of buildings is soaring, Rosefellow builds buildings without prior rental agreement. Just in the past two years, the promoter has achieved its share of bangs. He convinced Ford to set up a parts warehouse in Casselman, in the Outaouais region of Ontario, Nespresso on rue Reverchon in Pointe-Claire, and the distribution center for mattress retailer Dormez-Vous on the corner of boulevard Saint-Jean. and the A40, also in Pointe-Claire.
Patrick Laurin becomes the general manager of the 85-person team at Avison Young Quebec.
The 39-year-old executive has 13 years of experience in commercial brokerage. He holds a degree in civil engineering from Polytechnique and an MBA in finance from HEC Montréal.
“Patrick is a natural leader with a collaborative approach focused on business development across service lines to drive results,” said Mark Fieder, partner and president, Avison Young Canada, in a statement. “I am happy for Patrick as he embarks on a new stage of his career at Avison Young. »
Patrick takes over from his father Jean Laurin who ran Avison in Montreal since Avison Young bought Devencore in 2021. Jean Laurin was the major shareholder of Devencore for 25 years, a company founded by Phil O’Brien in 1972.
Mr. Laurin, Sr., retains the title of President of Avison Young Quebec.
