A victim of the recession, the PPG Canada Inc. plant sitting in the heart of the industrial portion of Clarkson in Mississauga is slowly being ripped apart from the inside. Orange tarps seal off parts of the plant to contain the dust from the demolition operations, while conduits are stripped of their wires for the valuable copper inside. All this from the plant that once provided OEM automotive paints for several large auto makers, such as Toyota.
Location | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Clarkson | ||||||
(Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) | ||||||
Built :: Closed | Status | Difficulty | ||||
N/A :: 2009 | Demolished | ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ | ||||
Hazards Risk | Security Risk | AUE Rating | ||||
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ | ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ | ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ | ||||
Hazard Observations | Security Observations | |||||
Partial Demolition | None Specified |
The plant first came on to my radar back in the summer of 2010, when fellow explorer Boffo mentioned it to me. We then went and scouted the plant a couple of times, only to be thwarted by active security on the site who could see us coming from a mile away (not joking - they did have really good sightlines on all the logical approaches). Down but not out, we put the plant on the back burner.
And then we got lucky. A drive by in April 2011 made it look as though there was no security on site that particular day - and further inspection confirmed that. And we made a break for one of the obvious openings in the building... several holes have been punched into the structure as part of the demolition work.
As the pictures show, parts of the plant had been thoroughly gutted, while other areas were quasi-intact. I was surprised, truth be told. I had figured more of the plant would have been gutted, given that it had almost been two years since closure, a closure that PPG Canada Inc. blamed on downsizing due to a decline in the North American automotive industry.
Additional information on the plant is hard to find, at best - I found references to the plant having been there for four decades, but not much else outside of that.
Was she worth the wait? I would have liked fully intact, obviously, but I will take quasi-intact over a giant, empty warehouse any day. So yes, she was worth it.