Investment in Waterloo Region soared in 2020 despite pandemic
Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation helped secure more than $221 million worth of new investment — better than in 2019
WATERLOO REGION — At the start of 2020, back before most of us had even heard of COVID-19, Tony LaMantia had delivered a fairly standard economic forecast to his board of directors at the Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation (EDC).
The Waterloo EDC is often the first point of contact for companies looking to locate, relocate or expand in Waterloo Region, and its president and chief executive had forecast they would help close about a dozen new investment deals and attract about $150 million worth of new investment to Waterloo Region in 2020.
The numbers were certainly attainable — after all, between 2016 when Waterloo EDC launched and the end of 2019, the group had helped deliver more than 40 deals and $800 million worth of investment. The forecast was also a little lower than 2019, which saw about $201 million and 15 deals.
Then COVID-19 hit, shocking the global economy. LaMantia was forced to revise and lower his projection to about five or six deals worth about $90 million, and there were several board meetings between March and May to discuss how the agency should respond.
“Unlike other organizations across the country, we didn’t retrench,” said LaMantia in an interview with The Record. “My board said … don’t worry about this year, just do what we need to do.”
When the dust settles on 2020, the Waterloo EDC will have fallen short of its early target for deals — it closed 11 by the end of October — but the agency blew past its initial investment goal of $150 million by helping to bring in more than $221 million, along with 416 new jobs to the region.
“We actually did better than 2019. That’s one hell of a story,” LaMantia said ahead of the annual Waterloo EDC public information meeting Thursday morning when the numbers were officially announced.
The final numbers for 2020 also don’t include the expansion of Amazon into Cambridge and Kitchener, and the announced expansion of Google in Kitchener — deals that were made without the direct aid of
Waterloo EDC, LaMantia said, and should create hundreds of more jobs.
When the pandemic first struck, LaMantia — along with local political and business leaders — got right to work and developed a Business and Economic Support Team to help ensure two-way communication was strengthened between politicians at all levels and the business community to help both groups respond quickly to the ever-changing pandemic landscape.
One of the biggest success stories in this region in 2020 has been its ability to pivot and retool to meet the increased need for personal protective equipment (PPE). Waterloo Region went from almost no local suppliers at the start of the year to
more than 90, bringing in approximately $80 million of new investment in just a few months.
LaMantia can remember calling PPE manufacturers around the world trying to secure more equipment for Waterloo Region in the earliest days of the pandemic.
“I never want to go through that again,” he said.
How did Waterloo Region respond so quickly to the need for PPE?
“The short answer is because we could,” said LaMantia. “We had the ingredients, we had the manufacturing base, we had the know-how, but more importantly there was the underlying attitude of ‘this is the need so let’s just do it.’”
In 2019, the non-profit Waterloo EDC received roughly $3 million in funding from federal, provincial and municipal governments, according to the group’s 2019 annual report. The bulk ($2 million) came from municipalities.
Including the recent 2020 numbers, the Waterloo EDC has helped close 56 deals that have brought in more than $1 billion in new investment to this community, and creating approximately 3,500 new jobs since 2016.
About 39 per cent of that investment has been in Kitchener, followed by Cambridge (37.5 per cent), Waterloo (11.9 per cent) and the Townships (11.5 per cent).
Looking ahead to 2021, it’s tough to say if Waterloo Region will continue to see strong investment as the pandemic continues. LaMantia couldn’t say for certain if there would be a lag on new investment that could spill over to next year as companies rein in spending while the pandemic drags on.
LaMantia is hopeful that news of numerous promising vaccines are in development, along with a new administration in the White House, could go a long way in easing global uncertainty.
“Q1 will be really, really important,” for understanding how the rest of the year will go, he said.
Waterloo EDC has forecast about six deals and about $57.5 million worth of investment in this region should close in the first few months of 2021, and even more deals worth an estimated $108 million look very promising and could close by the end of the year. James Jackson is a Waterloo Regionbased reporter focusing on business and technology for the Record. Reach him via email: jjackson@therecord.com