An announcement is near for a company setting up shop in Windsor linked to the new electric vehicle battery plant.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, mayor Drew Dilkens says the city and company have approved the deal and are just formalizing the announcement.
It's unknown who the company is or when the announcement will be but Dilkens says more announcements are possible as the city has two more companies it's working with in the pipeline.
"Just listening to what LG told us at the beginning when they announced the battery factory, they said Drew you got to get another two acres of land ready for about 1,500 jobs that will follow us in the supply chain and we're well on the way," says Dilkens. "Probably more on the way in terms of land use than jobs at this point but we're probably 900 of those jobs."
He says almost all of the new investments will be located near the airport.
"Thank god we have some land left at the airport to be able to offer to these folks but it just really impresses on the need to make sure that we're getting more land ready for future developments in the city because we're going to miss out on opportunities," he says.
Late last year, Dilkens and officials from Invest WindsorEssex have returned from a five-day trip to South Korea where they met with over 80 companies about investment opportunities in Windsor to support the NextStar Energy plant.
At that time, Dilkens said some of the companies they spoke to already had existing relationships with LG Energy.
In June 2022, Dongshin Motech signed a lease agreement with the city for a 12-acre piece of land off Wheelton Drive near Windsor Airport to build a 170,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.
The $60-million investment is expected to create 300 new jobs, and will manufacture battery casings for the lithium-ion batteries to be produced at the battery plant.
The company is aiming to finish construction of the factory by September 2023 with a goal of supplying battery cell casings to NextStar Energy by May or June of 2024.