Neil Everson Way pays tribute to the driving force behind Ancaster’s industrial park

An expansion of the Ancaster Industrial Park will serve as a tribute to Hamilton’s longest-serving director of economic development.

A ceremony was held on Friday morning to start construction on an extension of Cormorant Road, which will open 50 acres of land for development.

The Cormorant Road extension will be co-branded Neil Everson Way.

Neil Everson, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s two years ago, and is already in the final stages of the disease.

Ancaster Coun. Lloyd Ferguson stresses that Everson was “instrumental” in the Ancaster Industrial Park’s creation in the 1980s.

Today, the 570-acre business park is home to 218 businesses and over 3,800 employees.

Bill Everson, Neil’s son, spoke during Friday’s ceremony saying he visited his father in long-term care last week and showed him a picture of the sign for “his street, the one that he was so thrilled about” and let him know that it is “finally a reality.”

Bill Everson adds that “our children will never get to meet or play with Neil, but they will know the kind of man that their grandfather was, they’ll know how great of a father and husband he was, how admirable and respectful he always was and through an honour like this today, they’ll know the impact that he had on the city that they live in.”

Glen Norton, Hamilton’s current general manager of economic development, says the city will have no trouble filling the added 50 acres.

Norton stresses that the volume of inquiries that staff are dealing with is “significant” and shows that “Hamilton is on the map.”

He adds that for a long time we had to “sort of drag companies here.” Nortons says “that doesn’t happen anymore, this is now a preferred location for manufacturers.”