The Western Sarnia-Lambton Research Park is investigating potential sources of funding to expand its research infrastructure.
Executive Director Katherine Albion said lab suites are 100 per cent occupied and the pilot plant is approximately 80 per cent occupied at the Modeland Road site.
"We've experienced a very strong demand for our laboratory and pilot plant infrastructure," said Albion. "We've been at full occupancy of our labs for at least the last year with a very strong demand for our pilot space also. We're working with about three or four clients interested in our pilot space."
Albion said they've already modernized some of their facilities and received funding to enhance accessibility in the main reception area and some high traffic corridors.
"We've got a new specialized extrusion research centre at the park which has been established recently by Lambton College and we're working with our local partners to establish some new advanced industrial research commercialization centres at the park."
Albion said the park offers very unique infrastructure, and there are great resources and partners in the local innovation cluster to help attract new companies to Sarnia-Lambton or help existing ones grow.
"The research park is very unique because of the capabilities of the existing infrastructure here on site when it was Dow Chemical. So, we do have some spaces that are currently office spaces that could be repurposed into lab suites. These were original Dow labs that are currently offices and we can very easily upgrade the suite to accommodate additional lab clients on site."
Albion said the plan to advance growth was started last year.
"We are investigating potential sources of funding to execute these activities. So, we would hope that if we're successful with some of our applications we would start (expanding) later this year."
Albion said the research and commercialization initiatives underway at the park enhance the further development of Sarnia-Lambton's Hybrid Chemistry Cluster.
She said some tenants have already received significant investments to fund commercialization activities and expansions and an additional 50 jobs were created during the pandemic.
