After enduring years of slowdown in the energy sector, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the HyGrade Industrial Park is beginning to see a rebound.
The Industrial area was booming just a few short years ago, however as oil and gas prices dropped, there was an understandable exodus from the area. It appears that is turning around.
One bright sign is the former Baker Hughes shop has been purchased by Flomax Compression. Baker Hughes pulled out of Drumheller in the spring of 2014.
“We think it is a good area and community to grow in, and we do work all over the province out of Drumheller,” said Dennis Sax of Flomax Compression.
Flomax is locally owned and has operated in Drumheller since 2003. They started in Munson, and now have an office in the Hygrade Industrial Park and now the former Baker Hughes facility. They employ about 40 locally and also have an office in Drayton Valley.
“We have loyal customers who support us locally and around the province,” said Sax.
He says the company is diversifying and has branched into power generation, and the new facility will support this.
“We do power generation for gas plants, industrial and commercial products. We supply co-gen units. We just sold one to a chicken processing plant, and we have sold quite a few generators for Bitcoin, data processing centres,” explains Sax. “As oil and gas gets tougher, we have diversified into other areas, but oil and gas is still our bread and butter.”
Bob Sheddy of Century 21 Power Realty said the area saw as high as a 21 per cent vacancy after the oil and gas crash. Today, it is back to about 5 per cent vacancy with a variety of different businesses taking up stakes in the industrial area.
“There have been four significant deals in the industrial park in the last three months,” said Sheddy. “We have sold buildings to farmers, and for automotive uses, and of course light manufacturing and the industrial park is now quite full. You’ll still see some blank signs out there, but that is just because the occupant isn’t open for retail traffic.”
Drumheller CAO Darryl Drohomerski is encouraged by the turnaround.
“We are super happy with what we are seeing in the industrial park. We are seeing a lot more vacancies being filled and we are also seeing land being sold in the Rosedale industrial area,” said Drohomerski.
