While the first tenants are already working in the renovated offices at the front of the red-brick building on Longwood Road South, construction workers are busy in the 90,000-square-foot space at the rear of the building, knocking a big rectangle out of the middle of the heavy concrete floors directly below the massive new skylight in the roof.
That rectangle is becoming an atrium, which is the key to transforming four storeys of dark industrial space into a bright, modern complex of government, university and private laboratories and offices where ideas and commerce can meet and grow across interior balconies and in the public space below.
Within the next three weeks, says innovation park president Zach Douglas, the exterior of the former Camco building will be fully enclosed, with interior construction wrapping up by February.
Yesterday, Burlington's Trivaris -- a company specializing in commercializing ideas -- signed the lease for the entire top floor of the new space.
By the end of 2009, Douglas said, the entire headquarters building, known as MIP-1, should be 90 per cent occupied, completing the first major stage of a 10- to 15-year development plan for the research park.
He said interest among prospective tenants has picked up considerably since the arrival of the building's first tenants, the United Nations University's International Network on Water, Environment and Health in April.
While work continues on the $17.5-million renovation at MIP-1, plans continue to take shape for a new hotel next door, alongside Highway 403, where Concord Hospitality Enterprises plans a 130-room long-stay hotel that will target visitors to the park.
Douglas said he expects construction there to start by June.
The research park is an arm's-length venture by McMaster to stimulate research and economic growth by creating partnerships between government, private and university sources.
The university bought the former Camco appliance plant site in 2005, planning a major brownfield redevelopment with low buildings that meet high environmental standards and integrate with the broader community.
The park is projected to extend eventually to Aberdeen Avenue along both sides of Longwood, with as many as 14 buildings, housing up to 3,000 employees in 1.7 million square feet of space.
The first of those new buildings is the new headquarters of the CANMET materials technology laboratory, a federal research facility for metals and materials fabrication, processing and evaluation, where about 100 researchers are expected to work.
The 155,000-square-foot, $60-million keystone project is to get under way when shovels go into the ground in November.
This week, a contingent of CANMET employees visited Hamilton to tour the city and take part in orientation meetings as they prepare for the lab's move from Ottawa. The new lab is expected to be complete by the summer of 2010.
Wade Hemsworth
The Hamilton Spectator
whemsworth@thespec.com
905-526-3254
