Weekly Regional Business Intelligence | | | Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc. | | | Pressure building as steam retrofit tab goes from bad to worse There’s another big bill landing in the city’s lap related to London District Energy’s soon-to-be-decommissioned downtown district steam line. This week, council learned the cost to the city to retrofit municipal buildings ahead of the planned decommissioning of part of the downtown steam infrastructure is growing from a previous estimate of $11.1 million to $17.8 million (the city is already on the hook for $10.9 million to retrofit heating for city hall, Centennial Hall, the central library and Museum London). In March, board members at RBC Place London were notified that London District Energy owner Enwave will be cutting off steam service to the building in October 2027 (a year after much of the rest of the downtown steam infrastructure is being shut down). That means the convention centre will also need a retrofit — a $6.7-million tab. “It is huge, it is expensive, but it must be done,” said Councillor Jerry Pribil, who sits on the convention centre’s board. “The infrastructure is more than 100 years old. That’s why RBC Place is on the list.” RBC Place London doesn’t have the money in its own emergency funds to cover it, and will need the city to pick up the rest of the tab. The facility posted a record revenue of $7.4 million last year. The upshot: It might be nice if the city gets a final tally on this issue, which is developing into quite a boondoggle (and an expensive one). It seems like the city is being strung along here, with no word on financial compensation or contribution from Enwave itself. The city has so far played nice with Enwave, but Mayor Josh Morgan was a bit more pointed this time around in saying, “My ask of them is very clearly in the financial sphere [and] at this point they are discussing it. They’re taking it back to their board.” The mayor also mentioned the other unknown in this public story — how this is affecting private sector customers of the steam line. “We still don’t even have a window into the private sector costs that are being borne by downtown businesses,” Morgan said. Past reporting suggested the city has few options afforded to it by the 1992 contract with Enwave governing the district energy system, but the step-by-step way this is playing out does appear to be frustrating some at the council table. Read more: London Free Press | CTV News London | | | The Grove lands $8M in federal funding The federal government will pump $8 million into The Grove, the agri-food innovation hub at Western Fair District, to fund a 36,000-square-foot expansion, FedDev Ontario minister Evan Solomon announced last week. The money is part of an $11.1-million expansion plan that will add production space, retail space and cold storage to The Grove, with the Western Fair District contributing another $3.1 million to the expansion. The investment was the headline item in a $20-million-plus FedDev Ontario announcement that will see public money go into eight London and Chatham-Kent businesses and organizations, part of a broader federal program responding to U.S. tariff pressure. “The Grove has become an important collaborative ecosystem for agriculture and food innovation, bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, industry leaders and commercialization partners under one roof,” said Joe Dales of RHA Ventures, an investment fund that has invested in several companies that have come out of The Grove. Dales praised the investment, saying it “validates the importance of building regional innovation infrastructure that supports the future of food, agriculture, sustainability and advanced manufacturing.” The Grove has created more than 300 jobs in food production over the past five years, and the expansion is expected to add another 300 in the next five. The upshot: Much like the news of the poultry plant being built in Woodstock, officials were quick to point to the food sector as a resilient industry in the face of economic headwinds, with London Economic Development Corp. CEO Kapil Lakhotia telling The London Free Press that food businesses have “proven to be resilient during economic downturns as we are facing right now.” It’s also the kind of entrepreneurship that, with a nation-leading unemployment rate, will hopefully be good for the region. “The geopolitics are changing, our supply chains are less predictable, our costs are rising and our communities — let’s be clear, we’re not going to sugarcoat it — Chatham, Kent and London are feeling the pressure,” Solomon said at the announcement. “There’s real unemployment and we’ve got to be candid about it, and we’ve got to deal with it. And the only way to deal with it is to lean into building and to lean into investing, to keep showing up, not to stop showing up, to keep making sure that tomorrow is a better day than today.” Read more: RHA Ventures | London Free Press | | | Tax sale brings back speculation (and memories!) for SoHo site Five vacant properties near Wellington and South streets, once pitched as the site of a $300-million twin-tower residential and wellness centre, are headed to tax sale, the city announced this week. The sale of these properties is reigniting some interest in an old development proposal from 2012, for which the site was earmarked. Then-Mayor Joe Fontana (pictured) unveiled the proposal for the site, brought forth by Fincore Solutions, at his 2012 State of the City address, and the project got so far as obtaining zoning approvals. However, the project never came to fruition — the plan eventually fell apart as Fincore faced financial woes and the site has since become a draw for illegal dumping and encampments. The five properties now up for tax sale don’t make up a complete parcel of land, but with generous zoning attached to them, there is some speculation that a major development might be back in the cards. “There have been opportunities here before that didn’t materialize,” said Councillor David Ferreira. “There were promises made that didn’t materialize.” The upshot: The original Fincore proposal, a $250-million residential-medical complex billed as “one of the biggest anti-aging and rejuvenation facilities in North America,” was nothing short of a debacle for Fontana, so council is likely wary of something similar in scope. (The connections get weirder still: Fincore founder Lorendana Onesan Bowler, who brought the SoHo Medical Lifestyle facility proposal forward in 2012, was the landlord for the Spirit River Cannabis shop at 72 Wellington Street, which was shut down several times by London police; the property is now one of the five vacant properties included in the tax sale.) That said, there is likely enthusiasm to do something with the site. “This is an underutilized piece of land that is in a great spot in the city. So, I think it’s time that we potentially have a new future here,” Ferreira said. From residents, too: “This property, with all the encampments and everything that’s been going on (in) our part of the neighborhood, we just want it dealt with,” resident Taija Pearson told CTV News London. “Put some residential (development) here to make it look a little bit more beautiful than the ugliness of what it is now.” Read more: CTV News London | London Free Press | | | Sunfest announces largest-ever lineup Sunfest is back in early July, and organizers this week announced what they say is the largest-ever lineup for the festival: 52 acts across five stages, plus more than 225 food and craft vendors. Artistic directors Alfredo Caxaj and daughter Mercedes Caxaj (pictured) unveiled the Sunfest ’26 program Wednesday at London Brewing Co-operative. “It really is a huge amount of logistical work that goes on,” said Mercedes Caxaj. “There will be a bigger lineup, bigger international presence and bigger local presence as well. Our expanding partnership has made it possible for us to execute and do that.” Many new countries will be represented this year, the Caxaj duo said, with artists from Taiwan, Estonia, Serbia and Benin performing at Sunfest for the first time. Organizers are also upping the number of local acts, something that flows from Sunfest’s first-ever open call for London-based artists to perform. Local acts include Saveria, Tell it to Sweeney and the Seth McNall Sextet. The upshot: It should be great timing for Sunfest this year, given that the festival will land over the second-last weekend of the World Cup, right around when the tournament, and the multicultural national pride it tends to produce in Canada, really starts heating up. Last week’s World Cup-focused tourism pitch from Tourism London referred to a fan event in early July, so all of this will keep Victoria Park busy in the early summer. “Keep telling your friends, your family, friends from all over to come to London and to experience the whole world because really, those are four unique days of global celebration and culture,” Alfredo Caxaj said at the lineup announcement. Read more: London Free Press | CBC News London | | | Sunrise Farms to build $100M poultry facility in Woodstock Sunrise Farms, a B.C.-based poultry producer, announced this week that it is building a $100-million poultry processing facility in Woodstock. The 155,000-square-foot plant will be built along the south side of Highway 401, and company officials said it will bring 100 new jobs along with it. “Once complete, this facility will be one of the most technologically advanced poultry processing plants in the entire nation,” said Ontario minister of economic development Vic Fedeli (the province is putting $4 million into this project via Invest Ontario). The plant will allow Sunrise to expand national distribution of its halal-certified Sargent Farms brand. “This project represents the largest greenfield investment in Sunrise’s history,” said Sunrise CEO David Shoore, promising to “deliver substantial economic benefits to the region and reinforce Ontario’s food system.” Initial excavation work is underway at the site, but there was no firm timeline presented for the completion of the plant. The upshot: Between this announcement and that of funding for The Grove the agri-food sector had a good week. “Agri-food is on many economic development offices’ radar partly because, in some ways, it’s recession-proof. People always need to eat,” said Woodstock economic development commissioner Brad Hammond. “The spinoffs from it are very good too — fertilizer suppliers, seed suppliers, equipment suppliers and the chicken growers themselves — the supply chain goes pretty deep into the community.” Of interest is that both this new plant and the new-ish Maple Leaf poultry plant on Wilton Grove Road in London are scaling up to meet demand in the halal market, which has been growing relatively quickly in recent (Sunrise produces the halal-certified Sargent Farms brand, while Maple Leaf produces Mina-brand halal products at its London plant). “Sunrise Farms’ expansion reflects the strength of Ontario’s agri-food processing sector and the province’s commitment to supporting companies as they grow,” said Khawar Nasim, CEO of Invest Ontario. “We are pleased to support Sunrise as it grows its operations and contributes to Ontario’s food security and rural economic growth.” Read more: London Free Press | CBC News London | | | London ninth costliest city in Ontario for auto theft London ranked ninth on the Insurance Bureau of Canada’s (IBC) list of Ontario’s costliest cities for auto theft in 2025, a new report states. Auto theft insurance claims in the city totalled $11.7 million in 2025, up from just $3.3 million in 2017 (a roughly 250 per cent increase). “It’s high reward, low risk,” said Équité Association vice president Bryan Gast, of auto thefts in general. Toronto, predictably, tops the list at $114.5 million; Brampton ($43.2 million) and Mississauga ($31.6 million) round out the top three vehicle theft hotspots in Ontario. The provincial picture is improving, relative to the peak in auto theft activity we were dealing with around 2023. Total claims province-wide fell to $485 million in 2025, down from $723 million in 2024 and over $1 billion in 2023, while the number of thefts is down 22 per cent year-over-year. The upshot: Comparing this year’s IBC report to its last report, published in 2024 (looking at 2023 auto theft rates), roughly tracks the trajectory of auto theft as an issue in Ontario. In that year, London saw over $13.8 million in auto theft claims, so our trend line is the same as much of the province: a rapid spike post-Covid, followed by gradual improvement as more focus and resources have been put towards auto theft prevention. “Ending auto theft requires a sustained, coordinated and whole-of-society approach,” said IBC Ontario’s vice-president Amanda Dean. The IBC noted that technology has been playing an increasing role in auto theft of late, with thieves embracing more sophisticated, key-fob-cloning technology. Read more: Insurance Bureau of Canada | London Free Press London Free Press | CTV News London | | | Dispatch: May 22, 2026 A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week. View listings here | | | | |