New business and industry have been setting up in Welland for a number of reasons, says the city’s new general manager of economic development.
Lina DeChellis has been employed with the municipality for the last 30 years and with the economic development department since 1994. In the first few years with the municipality, her duties were floated around between building, human resources, finance, and legal departments.
Less than a month ago, she took over as head of economic development after the retirement of Dan Degazio, who led the department since 2000.
Already-serviced land at Welland’s two industrial parks have been a draw for new companies, DeChellis said in a recent interview.
Four lots have been recently sold at the River Road industrial park, leaving only two sites remaining-one of them 9.9 acres and the other 15 acres, said DeChellis.
Kit Steel will employ up to about 20 people at its factory already under construction, she said, not able to announce who is moving into three other plots that have been committed to by industries.
At the Enterprise Industrial Park, the last remaining site has been sold to Upper Canada Railway, a company that manufactures freight cars and passenger coaches for the locomotive industry.
In recent months, the city has been exploring new options to acquire industrial land.
A move to expropriate property from a local farmer drew ire from the community and members of council before the city decided to back down and stop pursuing the land.
DeChellis said working to find more land that industry can call home will be an order of business.
“We’ll sit down with planning staff and see if we can come up with some kind of gameplan,” she said.
“It’s going to be a challenge. We get a ton of calls about industrial land – and now we’re limited to what we have,” she said, referring to the two lots ready to go at the River Road industrial park.
Innio (formerly General Electric), Devron, and Northern Gold Foods are some of the major industries that have recently located to Welland.
The availability of the land these companies sit on when they were shopping around, plus a streamlined approval process were factors in Welland attracting them, said DeChellis, who was an economic development officer before taking the helm of the department earlier this year.
“The sooner they can get into the ground, the happier they are,” she said.
Gateway CIP efforts have also attracted businesses, she said, creating incentives to move to Welland.
Helping small businesses recover from the pandemic – providing them information on what’s available, getting involved in campaign to encourage local shopping, as well as patio expansion programs for restaurants are all pieces of the puzzle as well, she said, as well as working with large factories to expand their operations.
“You’re going to see a few more of those in Welland in the next year,” she said, using Valbruna ASW Inc.’s plans to grow as an example.
DeChellis was “born and raised” in Welland, something she agrees is “very important,” admitting that she knows the city and the people who live and work in it.
A strategy to improve downtown and attract new storefronts is important, too.
“We have some great retail and restaurants downtown. We’d like to see them flourish more,” she said.
The city has broken its own records the last two years with residential development permits, also a factor in growing the city, she said.
DeChellis also called Degazio, her predecessor, her mentor.
“I learned a lot from Dan,” she said, adding that the city’s recent successes are a “direct result of the foundation he set for Welland.”
