Barrie business to leave city to make expansion plans a reality

A Barrie business now into its second generation of ownership may be forced to leave the city in order to meet its expansion goals.

Aeroex Technologies has three separate facilities in Barrie, including its assembly and distribution headquarters on Bayview Dr. Since 1998, the company has operated in the industrial air filtration manufacturing sector.

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"We live in Barrie. Our community is Barrie," said current general manager Markus Kompp, who, along with his sister, has taken over the business from his father. "I grew up in Barrie; family is here; it's very good access; there's lots of supply here. A lot of our vendors are local, our page shop is next door to us, and we have a customer base here."

Aeroex moved into its current 15,000 sq. ft. headquarters in 2022. However, they maxed out options at that facility in a little more than a year.

The company saw a massive business boost due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2020, indoor air quality has become a much more critical issue to many, as has supporting local businesses.

"So after 2020 with supply chain problems, there was a big focus on reshoring manufacturing back to North America," said Erik Goglidze, the company vice-president of sales. "As a result, more manufacturing facilities opened up, more manufacturing facilities expanded, and our product was in demand."

Now employing approximately 35 people, the company needs to expand again. However, no lands were available at a sustainable price point. So management has purchased a 100-acre piece of property in Waubashene to host their new 100,000 sq. ft. headquarters, which they hope to have completed in the next two years.

"We've reached that point again where we're kind of stunted on growth because we can't really hire more people, we don't have the space, we're out of office space, we're kind of tied up for shop space and we have new product lines that we want to put out on to the market and we can't because we don't have space anymore," said Kompp.

The problem facing Aeroex has been high on the radar of Barrie's mayor in recent months. Mayor Alex Nuttall has been on a public campaign to unlock more industrial lands, pushing for a change in Barrie's boundaries with neighbouring municipalities, including Oro-Medonte and Springwater.

"Our job is to go and try to figure it out in a time period that makes sense so that we can preserve businesses like Aeroex, not just preserve but help them expand and at the same time provide those jobs for our residents that are so incredibly important," said Nuttall.

Aeroex management is working with town staff in Waubashene to rezone the parcel of land it's eyeing.

"It is sad that Barrie's reached the point where there's nowhere for us to grow," said Kompp. "There's no buildings for us to move into or purchase or lands to develop. There's just nothing available, and anything that does come up is just not suitable for sustained growth. We also have to look at the future, not just today."