Steelport property owners on Hamilton’s waterfront make plans beyond potential data centre

The owners of 800 acres of former Stelco land on Hamilton’s waterfront have big plans for the property, well beyond the highly talked about data centre.

The main message received was that Steelport, the name of the site owned by Slate Asset Management, is open for business, and ready to attract a variety of tenants.

“About four years ago, we acquired these lands from Selco, who had operated on them for over a century previously,” said Steven Dejonckheere, the senior vice president of Slate Asset Management. “Stelco strategically has been changing their operations and has a lot of surplus area, and that provided an opportunity for Slate to come in and re-envision what that might look like.”

Slate Asset Management says the empty brownfield could look drastically different in the next ten years or so.

“And from day one, really, the plan for us has been to take an 800 acre site that’s got a heavy industrial heritage to it, and repurpose that into an employment and logistics zone,” said Dejonckheere. “At full buildout, we anticipate that there will be about 11 to 12 million square feet of new development here.”

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But giving this contaminated land a facelift comes with its own challenges.

“Not as big a lift as people anticipate, I mean certainly these lands, about two-thirds of them are filled over the years that Stelco owned and operated as they filled the lakefront,” said Dejonckheere. “There’s certainly impacted soils everywhere, most of that can be managed as-is when we do new development, so just by nature of putting new pavement down, new soils for plantings and building footprints, we’ll manage most of those contaminants in place.”

Just to be clear, Stelco isn’t going anywhere.

“They’ve got a 75 acre parcel at the centre of the site and they’re going to continue to be there long-term with us,” said Dejonckheere. “The rest of the facilities over the next several years will be decommissioned and we’ll make way for new development in those areas.”

One of the proposed tenants of the Steelport site is an AI data centre, and Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath has called a special meeting for Tuesday, so councillors can hear from data centre proponents.

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“What I find kind of disheartening is that it’s being presented as an education to both city council and the public, which I believe we should be getting many different speakers on this, not only the ones who stand to benefit from the AI data centres,” said Stephanie Ribson, a concerned resident.

Environment Hamilton’s executive director Ian Borsuk isn’t necessarily opposed to data centres in the city, but doesn’t think they should be rushed.

“If data centres really are the future for Hamilton, that these are going to be a huge economic boom for us, then I think we can afford to pump the breaks for a few months — put together some frameworks, put together some guardrails, ensure that we do it right,” said Borsuk.

The Steelport Project would also include close to two kilometres of waterfront that would be given to the city to build a walking and biking trail.

Tuesday’s special meeting starts at 9 a.m. at Hamilton City Hall.

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