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Waiting for spring
Tasha Bard of Ross’ Nurseymen shows off some of the pretty pansies gardeners will be taking home once warmer weather finally arrives.
Pam Wright/The Chatham Voice
Magna bringing 150 jobs to C-K
By Bruce Corcoran bruce@chathamvoice.com
Chatham-Kent officials think they have captured a form of Lightning in a bottle, with Magna Industries announcing it is setting up a production facility in Chatham. Magna will establish a
manufacturing line by late 2022 to construct battery enclosures for the Ford F150 Lightning. The plant, which will be in the old Crown Cork & Seal building at 125 Irwin St. off Riverview Drive, will mean an anticipated 150 new jobs for residents of Chatham-Kent.
Phil Page, general manager of Formet Industries, a subsidiary of Magna, said interest in the F150 Lightning has been huge, prompting Formet to look for additional production space to build the battery housings. He said the St. Thomas facility just didn’t have the space, so they
looked elsewhere. Their eyes focused on Chatham. “We had to look at facilities in a two-hour radius, and then facilities that could offer the support resources. Chatham hit them both on the head,” he said in terms of an appropriately sized building
and the support needed for it. Formet’s Irwin Street location has 170,000 square feet of floor space, a good fit for the company’s needs. Page said finding the right-sized facility wasn’t easy. There were numerous larger and many smaller sites avail-
able in and around the area, however. “The location is ideal for us too. It’s on the (Highway) 401 corridor, and this project goes into Dearborn (Mich.),” he said of the side of the Ford facility where the F150 Lightning is being produced. Continued on page 3
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