Mr. Christie's

We welcome your comments concerning Mr. Christie’s closing.

Early on, we received this comment from an area resident:

“I just heard that the Mr. Christie factory will be closing. It’s a loss of 550 jobs and will be replaced by condos. I think this  is a huge huge concern for the area.”

David Juliusson (please see below) has shared his initial reflections.

Please note, as well, that people wishing to make comments regarding the proposed review of the City Official Plan for the site in question, at 2150 Lake Shore Blvd. West, can send such comments by Canada Post or email to:

Official Plan Review
City Planning, Policy & Research
Metro Hall, 23rd Floor
City of Toronto
55 John Street Toronto, Ontario  M5V 3C6

Email: opreview@toronto.ca

Comments from David Juliusson

You asked for responses. Here is mine right at the point where the news
is just breaking. I may add more later once more information comes out.

Mr. Christie’s is closing. Mondelez Canada, who became owners of the factory after the North American split of Kraft Foods Inc. operations earlier this month, made the closure announcement Thursday afternoon to workers. 550 jobs will be exiting our community.

Peter  Milczyn said Mondelez Canada has already made clear they hope to rezone the 27-acre property from employment to residential land. They plan to build 27 condominium towers on the property.

Councillor Grimes released a statement on this He said he “was deeply disappointed upon hearing this sad news. While this comes as a deep loss to the community, I am committed to doing whatever it takes to keep high-quality jobs and high-quality employers in the South Etobicoke community.”

Mondolez has approximately $34 billion in assets and is seeing major growth in “developing markets” especially India, Brazil  and China.

In totally unrelated news, Mondelez shares closed 0.9% higher at US$26.80 on Thursday on the Nasdaq

At one of the Open Houses,  Laurel Broten [was] giving a great speech about the importance of the prepared food economy in our neighbourhood and how it was a an absolute priority to the government. She talked about the synergy that has developed because so much of it is in one place. She was quite happy that Pizza Pizza had moved into the neighbourhood. Having the industry means the skilled work force comes together making it even more desirable to locate a business here. This announcement is a major blow to that vision. I will be curious how she responds to this announcement.