London Inc. Weekly

Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.

New multi-sport facility on tap for Western Fair District

London is getting a new sports facility. City council approved a plan to partner with the Western Fair District on a new multi-sport facility within the J-AAR Expo Centre, which is set to include a three-court gym, plus flexible recreation space (rendering pictured). The city will be kicking in $7.2 million for the public-private partnership, which is set to run for 25 years — a deal that mirrors the kind of agreement the city has with the Western Fair for the ice rinks. Mayor Josh Morgan said the deal was a “long-term partnership to provide more recreational space,” which he hopes will “relieve some of the pressure on our parks and recreation services.” The city’s parks and rec infrastructure has been bending a bit under the weight of rapid post-Covid population growth in the city. “This is an opportunity to take some space that maybe is underused at Western Fair, partner with the city and provide much-needed recreation space,” he told The London Free Press.

The upshot: Many kids grew up playing plenty of hockey games out at the Western Fair rink, which has proven to be a great piece of infrastructure for the city in that sense; the city and the Western Fair will be hopeful that they can put together another popular and well-used facility. Conceptually, if you wanted to think of this as a gym-sports version of the Western Fair rink, you wouldn’t be far off. It’s also a bet on the increasing popularity of sports that are not hockey among Canadian kids. A 2022 survey found that basketball had overtaken hockey as the second-most played sport by kids aged five to 17, with soccer topping the list. And let’s not forget the explosion of the senior pickleballers in the city. “Sport has a way of bringing communities together and adding another destination recreation complex to The District supports the continued development of a more vibrant London, strengthens tourism and drives economic development,” said the Western Fair Association’s Reg Ash. “We are excited and committed to operate this new facility with pride.”

Read more: London.ca | London Free Press

GDLS-Canada named top defence company

London‘s General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada (GDLS-Canada) has nabbed the title of Canada’s Top Defence Company from Canadian Defence Review, the media company announced this week. “GDLS-Canada represents the very best of Canada’s defence industry,” said Canadian Defence Review’s editor Peter Kitchen. “With nearly 50 years of continuous support to the CAF, combined with its ability to deliver advanced, combat-proven platforms at home and abroad, the company exemplifies operational excellence and industrial strength.” The publication highlighted the achievement of “initial operational capability on the ACSV program” as a contributor to GDLS-Canada’s win — the armoured combat support vehicle contract, awarded to GDLS-Canada in 2019, began entering operation early in 2025. By 2030, GDLS-Canada is expected to outfit the army with a fleet of 360 of these vehicles.

The upshot: It’s a good time to be a top defence company in Canada. On the one hand, the money is definitely flowing, as the Carney government aims to hit a 3.5-per-cent-of-GDP target for core defence spending. On the other, news leaked out this week that Canada has reportedly been selected as the host nation of the new Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, an international project that will provide long-term financing for defence projects. Low-cost financing and a greater emphasis on shifting away from U.S. manufacturers are all positive trends for GDLS-Canada and other defence firms with domestic supply chains and might also present more export opportunities. “Having supported the CAF in continuous production in Canada since the late 1970s, our workforce today reflects that legacy–often spanning multiple generations. That continuity among employees brings a deep sense of ownership and commitment to the vehicles we build,” said GDLS-Canada’s general manager Dave Haggerty.

Read more: Newswire

VersaBank to pilot new AI financing tool

London’s VersaBank announced this week it is partnering with FinanceIt, a Toronto-based fintech company, to launch a new AI-powered point-of-sale financing program. The new program is a real-time structured receivables program and is aiming to use AI to get faster loan approvals for VersaBank’s point-of-sale financing program clients (companies that provide loans and leases to consumers and businesses for big-ticket purchases such as consumer home improvement/HVAC projects and a wide variety of commercial equipment). “VersaBank’s Real-Time Structured Receivable Program takes our unique and highly successful digital point-of-sale financing solution to a whole new level, further extending our competitive advantage and, more importantly, significantly expanding the addressable market for our SRP on both sides of the border,” said president David Taylor. The pilot program will see a limited-scale rollout “to demonstrate the functionality and operational integrity of the Real-Time SRP in a limited-scale, real-world scenario,” the company said. “The Real-Time SRP is the result of our relentless pursuit of continuous innovation to address underserved markets in the banking industry based on our internally developed, proprietary core banking software, which is now being supercharged by the addition of our own AI technology,” Taylor added.  

The upshot: Currently, under its traditional model, partners in the structured receivable program need to warehouse the financing deals for five to 30 days before packaging them up and getting the loan from VersaBank. This program aims to trim that process out and see businesses be able to finance individual loans much more quickly. “VersaBank’s Real-Time SRP is a game changer,” said Casper Wong, CEO of FinanceIt, in a statement. “The ability to instantly finance individual loans significantly enhances the efficiency and economics of our long-standing strategic relationship with VersaBank and is aligned with our own long term innovation objectives.” Taylor added that demand for their receivables program in the U.S. has “exceed[ed] our expectations” and that “the addition of real-time capability will enable us to further capture market share from securitized financing providers, expanding our growth potential there.”

Read more: Fintech.ca

Western looks to curb traffic on campus

Western University sees you using its roads as a shortcut on your commute, and they have a plan to stop it. The university’s new Open Space Strategy, which outlines proposed changes the school wants to make to traffic flows, gives greater priority to pedestrian and cycling trips, and paves the way to “restrict non-university private vehicle traffic on campus by limiting access on key routes,” the draft document states. “A new street type will be introduced on campus, which allows pedestrians, bicyclists, buses and service vehicles, but prohibits access for private vehicles.” The school says this classification is being planned for Middlesex Drive and a portion of Lambton Drive — changes that will mean the only cut-through available will be routes which begin or end at Phillip Aziz Avenue or at Lambton and Windermere. The document also includes plans to build a second bridge over the Thames River on University Drive within the next couple of years.

The upshot: Much of this is still in the draft phase, and the university is holding public consultation sessions to gauge the public’s reaction. But on campus, some are praising the move. Brendon Samuels, a part-time instructor at Western, called it a “good start,” saying that cycling infrastructure is seeing a “huge uptick” on campus. But anything that cuts down on cut-through traffic will be sure to elicit groans from commuters, though, who love the shortcuts, and who were plenty unhappy when facilities staff with CUPE went on strike and restricted access to the cut-through roads. Also included in the plan is the idea to potentially redesign the Alumni Hall roundabout, replacing it with a transit-oriented pickup and drop-off area. The strategy is also keeping open the possibility that a north leg of the BRT might one day cut through campus along Western Road. “Our strategies have to be fluid,” said Western’s VP of operations Lynn Logan. “When we get rapid transit and when we have more transit service that can come to campus, that really changes how people arrive and move through the university.”  

Read more: CBC News London | CTV News London

Food tech company Appetronix acquires Cibotica

Local food robotics company Appetronix Inc. announced this week that it was buying a Vancouver-based autonomous food bowl assembly company, Cibotica. “This acquisition represents far more than just expanding our technology stack. It’s about elevating the entire food robotics ecosystem,” said Nipun Sharma, CEO of Appetronix. “We’ve worked closely with the Cibotica team for years, watching them build breakthrough technology that solves real operational challenges, and bring it to market.” Appetronix, likely not a household name, is a local company that has been building an autonomous pizza making machine. Co-founder Ray Schott told CTV News London the vending machine-style devices are designed to be dropped into “a university, or an office tower, and provide food in that sort of environment.” The company currently has two such units — one housed in a warehouse here in town, and the other (the company’s first customer-facing unit) located in the John Glenn Columbus International Airport. It also provides robotics in a partnership with American pizza chain Donato’s.

The upshot: Though it’s been slow to get off the ground, market forecasts still believe there’s a lot of room to grow for the robotic food preparation sector, with one forecast by the IMARC Group suggesting the sector could grow to USD $6.4 billion in the next eight years, fuelled by “labour shortages, technological developments, the increased demand for processed foods, stricter food safety laws and growing consumer expectations for food product quality and diversity.” AI technology is helping push the robotics end forward as well. In that sense, the acquisition of a separate food robotics company makes sense. “As two Canadian robotics companies operating in adjacent spaces, Cibotica and Appetronix had been in dialogue over the years, exchanging ideas and insights around food automation,” said Cibotica CEO Ashkan Nabavi, speaking to Betakit. “Over time, it became clear there was strong strategic alignment and an opportunity for Cibotica’s technology and [intellectual property] to continue advancing within a larger platform.”

Read more: Betakit

Province plans to demolish former psyche hospital buildings

Central Elgin is moving ahead with plans to redevelop the old St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital grounds as a major housing project with up to 3,500 units, with the province saying it plans to demolish what’s left of the hospital. This month, Infrastructure Ontario confirmed to Central Elgin that it was “exercising its rights, privileges and immunities in respect of the requirement to obtain municipal demolition permits for certain heritage-designated and non-heritage-designated buildings associated with the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital,” which the agency said are beyond “their useful life and post a health and safety risk in their current state.” Demolition is expected to take two years, with Infrastructure Ontario expecting to begin site-clearing work later this year. Some elements of the old hospital, including stone carvings, will be removed and preserved, the agency says. In April, Central Elgin approved the zoning amendments required to clear to the way for housing development on the site.

The upshot: There are several moving parts here. The first is that getting the province to take responsibility for demolition will be helpful for Central Elgin, which put out a call earlier this year for developers interested in making actual proposals for housing on the site. That call for proposals is open for another few weeks, and the hope might be that provincial approvals for demolition will remove any lingering uncertainties over the site. The other aspect is likely financial. The redevelopment of the land itself, which is being transferred from provincial ownership to municipal ownership, is seen as part of the compensation Central Elgin will receive after the province had to pilfer some of Central Elgin’s land and transfer it to St. Thomas, so that the latter could put together a deal for the PowerCo EV battery plant. “This is the only time in the history of Central Elgin we’ve been able to do this,” Central Elgin mayor Andrew Sloan told CBC News London. He also brushed off heritage preservationist concerns to The London Free Press: “I think everyone’s willing to look at how to commemorate the heritage, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that we can have 3,500 new homes and leave all the buildings standing.” 

Read more: CBC News London | London Free Press

Dispatch: May 1, 2026

A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week.

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