Bradford is about to get a truckload of investment from a new employer.
Highlight Motor Group will be breaking ground Thursday, Aug. 10, on a new 100-acre (40-hectare) facility just south of Line 6 on Sideroad 5, which will function as the company’s new headquarters.
Highlight Motor Group specializes in shipping and warehousing, with about 1,500 trailers and 760 trucks across seven locations in Canada and the U.S., and the company’s new site is expected to include offices, a yard for tractor trailers, a large warehouse and a repair shop.
Those facilities are expected to cost about $250 million to build and could bring as many as 2,000 jobs to the area, including for drivers, maintenance staff, sales people and other support staff.
Highlight Motor Group is currently headquartered in Concord in Vaughan near the CN Rail yard, but a shift in recent years to the type of development in the area is posing some problems.
“We decided to leave Concord because the area is under residential construction recently. It used to be all industrial and it made sense for a transportation company like ours to be there,” Alexander Ivanov, general manager at Highlight Motor Group, said.
He explained that an increase in the number of highrise condo towers means the area’s road network is over populated and under serviced, leading to congestion and delays.
“We’re losing all the time and the pollution comes with it when the trucks are idling trying to make the turn. It doesn’t work for the environment, society or us, so we had to make a big decision about what we’re going to do,” he said.
Looking to the north, the company found Bradford West Gwillimbury, with available land located along a major highway and in between two major hubs: Barrie and Toronto.
Alina Savo, marketing manager, explained construction is expected to begin soon after the groundbreaking, and if all goes well, the site should be ready for the company to move in by summer of 2026.
“We’re very excited to be here. We can’t wait to make this our home,” she said.
Ivanov and Savo expect the facilities will be industry leading, and while they couldn’t share many details yet, Ivanov said “anything that’s latest and greatest is being discussed,” and the company is currently looking for a chief technology officer to help with the process.
One example Ivanov could reveal was that the company plans to build full-scale wash bays for all the trucks.
“That’s technology we’re bringing from Sweden. It’s one of the best and state-of-the-art, so the trucks are always clean and free of debris, especially in the winter. So there is no snow or ice flying around, because as you know, it’s a hazard on the highways,” he said.
When it comes to the warehouse, Ivanov said the company uses 40-foot-(12-metre) high ceilings to maximize capacity and uses “state-of-the-art software” to control the facility and overcome some the hurdles that resulted from the supply chain crisis, such as products being left on trailers unloaded due to a lack of warehouse capacity.
“We really like setting the industry standards and surpassing it,” Savo said.
She explained the company upgrades equipment at about twice the pace of industry standards, and modernizes their fleet every year to ensure they maintain low emissions.
Using only equipment that has been approved to meet environmental standards is how Savo said the company achieved its SmartWay certification.
Issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and recognized by Natural Resources Canada, the SmartWay program helps companies advance supply chain sustainability by measuring, bench-marking, and improving freight transportation efficiency.
“We’re doing our best to ensure that we leave as little environmental footprint that we can while doing our jobs to the best of our abilities,” Savo said.
While the company has transported all types of construction materials, food stuff and retail goods for customers like TJX, Home Depot and Canadian Tire, they’ve also handled some more novel cargo.
In addition to getting the necessary certifications to transport loads for the U.S. military, Ivanov also recalled making trips for Pfizer.
“We were a regular carrier for Pfizer at the branch in Montreal and we were transporting their freight more than regularly I would say. So that led me to believe it was either the components or the vaccines,” he said.
The only thing Ivanov could think of that they haven’t transported so far is livestock.
According to their website, the company started in 2007 as cross-boarder truckload specialists connecting New York and New Jersey with the GTA, and in addition to Concord, currently has headquarters in Parsippany N.J., Aurora Ill., and Santa Fe Springs Calif., with a combined warehouse capacity of more than 700,000 sq. ft. (more than 6,5030 square metres).
They focus on eastern Canada and the U.S., but also go out west to Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver as well as Chicago Ill., Milwaukee Wis., St Louis Mo., Dallas Texas and Laredo Texas.
They also offer dry vans, temperature-controlled vans and truckload services, expedited transportation, local cartage and emergency shipments and are hazmat certified.
“We serve a lot of national-sized clients and a lot of them do require more than transportation services from us and we’re more than happy to oblige. Wherever life takes us. If it makes sense to expand into an adjacent industry to what we’re doing, we’re here for it,” Savo said.
Ivanov wants Bradford to know “we’ll be hiring a lot of local talent.”
