The former Tenneco/ Monroe Building in Owen Sound has new owners.
Local businessman Peter Van Dolder is one of the owners who make up a group of about 8 people called the Peninsula Pro Growth Group (PPG Group).
He says, “We’re excited about it. I’ve been hands on with the PPG project and then the Monroe building came up and I said, ‘Hey, how can we revitalize that and repurpose that building?”
Van Dolder believes the roughly 300,000 square foot space will likely be diversified and maybe divided into smaller spaces. He uses the example of the PPG facility in the same area which has Bruce Power suppliers BWXT and Brotech.
The last company in the building was Tenneco which halted production in May of 2020 and closed in the summer. Tenneco moved its operations to its Ohio plants as part of a “restructuring initiative to respond to changing market conditions.”
About 500 people had been working there.
The PPG Group took possession December 30th. Van Dolder didn’t reveal the price of the property but described with a chuckle as, “Enough.” He added, “On that same token, the opportunity that I see is that it costs so much to build a new structure today, so at the end of the day we have a bunch of renovations to do to it and refit it, but it still becomes very reasonable for new business or existing business to utilize the facility.”
Van Dolder says he’s currently showing the building to interested groups or businesses. “For a small to medium size business, with things that are happening, people moving out of the GTA, I think we’re going to see quite a bit of activity in our area here.”
He adds, “I hope to have some good news shortly with some new businesses moving into town.”
Van Dolder notes that will take a little time as there is still some equipment being moved out of the building and renovations need to be completed.