The Industrial Innovation District (QII) of Saint-Jérôme will welcome in 2025 the new Maintenance Emric factory, a specialist in industrial laundry, which is preparing to invest $20 million. The Jérôme company will rely on high-tech equipment to take advantage of its strategic geographic positioning.
Stéphane Juteau is very proud to talk about the future factory of his company Maintenance Emric. This native of Saint-Jérôme is keen to grow Lavoir Jérômien, the industrial laundry division of his group, in his own town. And it’s not just out of Jeromean pride…
Eight years after buying Lavoir Jérômien, Stéphane Juteau is preparing to invest $20 million in a high-tech factory, where the washers will automatically load and unload, with equally automated drying and folding. “We will be able to recover the energy and the rinsing water to be much more efficient from an energy point of view,” says Stéphane Juteau.
Work on the future 60,000 ft2 building will begin in the summer of 2024 in the new Industrial Innovation District of Saint-Jérôme, with the aim of having the factory operational by the end of 2025. Revenues of the company should then jump from 4.5 to 10 million dollars, and the number of employees will double with around thirty hires in perspective.
Saint-Jérôme is ideally located to fuel the growth of Maintenance Emric. The company is located at the heart of a triangle linking Montreal to Mont-Tremblant and Ottawa. “It’s strategic: I can quietly develop markets from here,” explains Stéphane Juteau.
It is this strategic location that the City of Saint-Jérôme is banking on by developing its Industrial Innovation District (QII), an area of three million square feet ready to build. “We want to welcome businesses with added value that will bring wealth and quality jobs,” summarizes Martin Pigeon, municipal councilor and head of the economic development and transport electrification commission at the City of Saint- Jerome.
Electrification and automation are key points in Saint-Jérôme’s attractiveness strategy. The city already has renowned players in these fields, such as Lion Électrique and its buses, Doppelmayr, specialized in elevators and goods lifts, and Génik, specialist in industrial automation. The Innovative Vehicle Institute (IVI) is located in the Industrial Innovation District.
Saint-Jérôme intends to go further than just hosting businesses. “We want to promote synergies between academia and businesses,” explains Martin Pigeon. The elected official confides that the City is “pushing Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon to bring a university electrical engineering pavilion to Saint-Jérôme”, attached to the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), which already has a campus in Saint-Jérôme. Jerome.
To achieve its ambitions, the City of Saint-Jérôme benefits from an asset that cities further south are beginning to lack: land free of any construction, ready to accommodate industrial and tertiary buildings.
But the Industrial Innovation District will not take the form of sold-off industrial land. “We aim to create integrated living spaces, with green spaces, cycle paths, daycares and residential areas, to create a high-quality industrial park,” describes Martin Pigeon. Industrial condos are made available throughout the city to accommodate modest entrepreneurial projects.
And that’s not all. Four million square feet are intended to accommodate the regional health center, structured around the regional hospital, residences for seniors and private players.
This development only continues the transformation of the economic landscape of Saint-Jérôme, begun in 2020. “The reality of businesses has changed with the pandemic,” notes Cassandra Thériault, general director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) Metropolitan Saint-Jérôme. “Some have closed, some have changed, some have emerged or experienced unanticipated growth. »
And that’s without counting on companies looking for land to develop their activities, and which are struggling to find elsewhere. “Businesses are coming more and more north,” observes Cassandra Thériault. “It’s a great opportunity to continue to develop the business community. »
