On June 19, 2019, Mayor John Tory announced a partnership between the City of Toronto, MaRs Discovery District (MaRs), George Brown College (George Brown) and Refined Manufacturing Acceleration Process (ReMap) to open an innovative manufacturing incubator. Located at 440 Dufferin Street, the complex will have 60,000 square feet of light-manufacturing space, of which 14,500 square feet will be dedicated to the manufacturing incubator. Light-manufacturing refers to manufacturing in industries that do not involve heavy and capital intensive products or production equipment.
The project is aimed at housing the booming population of start-up technology companies in Toronto that need manufacturing space. Deputy Mayor of Toronto Michael Thompson spoke about the need for the incubator, stating “What I hear from the manufacturing community is that there really are not a lot of options for new companies to begin manufacturing their products in Toronto. An entrepreneur will successfully build their prototypes here, but be forced to build the next 50 to 100 products overseas.”
In 2018, the City of Toronto recognized this need for a manufacturing incubator and issued a request for proposals in hopes of finding the right partners and business model to pioneer a new kind of urban manufacturing space. MaRs, George Brown and ReMap collectively submitted the bid that, after a competitive process, was selected. The incubator is set to open in July of 2020.
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