OUR ADVANTAGES
Debert Business Park offers the region’s best access to markets, transportation networks, infrastructure, competitive tax rates, and land pricing. Whatever your reason for choosing Debert Business Park, we guarantee you’ll find many more to stay.
Advanced Transportation Network
Land, Sea, Air, and Rail – Debert Business Park gives your business direct access to any and all of the transportation infrastructure needs you may require.
- Positioned directly on HWY 104 (Trans Canada Highway) providing direct coast-to-coast and international road access
- 45 Minutes from Halifax Stanfield International Airport’s full-service cargo and passenger capabilities
- 90 Minutes from The Greater Moncton International Airport
- 65 Minutes from the Port of Halifax with direct access to multiple container terminals, global shipping lanes, and hundreds of ports globally
- Adjacent to CN Rail’s Transcontinental Main Line with spur line opportunities in place
- Adjacent to Truro’s rail junction providing easy and direct access to the Cape Breton Rail Line
No wonder Debert Business Park is the chosen regional distribution location for TDL Group (Tim Hortons), Home Hardware, and Sobeys.
Transportation Drive Time To Major Markets
Key Industries in and around Debert
Not only is Debert home to several key industries, but is also proudly part of a number of growth sectors in Nova Scotia. For established businesses and new businesses alike, this means you will find a wealth of resources, infrastructure, and partners to draw upon not only in Debert, but also across the province.
Nova Scotia Industry Sectors
Nova Scotia provides competitive advantages for exporters and investors and has one of the most diverse economies in Canada. We are building strength and capacity in leading industry sectors that are powering global innovation.
Source: NSBI
Life sciences
Manufacturing
Agriculture and Agri-food
Financial services
Ocean technology
Information communications technology
Clean technology
Defense, security and aerospace
Digital media
Business Taxes and Incentives
With a business-first focus, Debert Business Park is the ideal place to start or move a business. Our business partners have direct access to a wealth of incentive programs from Nova Scotia’s dedicated business development program, Nova Scotia Business Inc., which include:
Payroll Rebate: This is a performance-based, financial incentive offered to qualified companies expanding or locating in Nova Scotia. The Payroll Rebate offers a return on a company’s eligible gross payroll, helping to save on eligible payroll expenses.
Innovation Rebate Program: This program provides financial incentives on projects that enable Nova Scotia businesses to increase innovation capacity through private-sector capital investments or adoption of new technologies and business processes. The Innovation Rebate Program works as a rebate against a company’s direct costs.
Workplace Innovation and Productivity Skills Incentive (WIPSI): This program provides eligible employers with a funding incentive to invest in employee skills through workforce training.
Graduate to Opportunity (GTO): The GTO is a two-year program that provides salary contributions to employers to offset the cost of hiring a recent graduate. As an eligible employer, you could receive 25% of the graduate’s annual salary in year one, and 12.5% of the graduate’s annual salary in year two.
Strategic Co-op Education Incentive: This incentive provides wage assistance to private sector, government-funded, and non-profit organizations offering career-related work experiences for university and community college co-operative students.
Nova Scotia Research and Development Tax Credit: This incentive mirrors the federal program, and provides an additional 15% tax credit to Nova Scotia corporations that incur qualified SR&ED expenditures made in Nova Scotia, as defined by the federal Income Tax Act.
Atlantic Innovation Fund: This program aims to increase Atlantic Canada’s innovation capacity by funding R&D projects linked to the commercialization of technology-based products, processes or services.
Commercial Land Prices
Municipally owned business parks are subject to Municipal Government Act provisions stating that property pricing must reflect ‘fair market value’. Within this framework, designed for fairness to private developers, the Debert Business Park offers very competitive pricing relative to comparable business parks.
Debert Business Park Commercial Property Tax Rates
As part of Colchester County, tax rates for commercial properties within the Debert Business Park are set annually by Colchester’s Municipal Council. The current commercial property taxation rate is $2.28 per $100 of assessed value.
How does this compare with other jurisdictions?
* Of the 64 areas with commercial tax rates in Nova Scotia, Colchester has the 17th lowest (47 are higher, 16 are lower);
* DBP’s commercial tax rate of $2.28 compares favourably to others across Nova Scotia, which range from $1.46 to $5.56, the average being $3.50.
A Diverse Economy
Debert and the surrounding communities are home to a rich and diverse economy. A diverse economy means your business will have easy access to a skilled industrial workforce.
Educated Workforce
With a significant proportion of the population having a post-secondary certificate, diploma or degree, Debert Business Park has access to a highly educated workforce. Debert and the Municipality of Colchester are proudly part of Canada’s Education Province, Nova Scotia. With more academic institutions per capita than anywhere else in Canada, Nova Scotia has faculty and students from over 100 countries that work and study, in both English and French.
Committed to Environmental Sustainability
Debert Business Park is committed to a healthy environment and environmentally sustainable development practices. Debert is twinned with Devens, a business park operated by the state of Massachusetts, as an Eco-industrial Park.
The Essentials
• Located just minutes from Truro, Debert Business Park is not your typical business park setting. Debert is part of the rural landscape overlooking the Bay of Fundy. The natural setting is forested with open fields of wild blueberries. While a fully serviced business park, Debert is equally a place for trail hiking and cross-country skiing.
• Debert is partially located within the watershed of the McElmons Pond that is a provincially owned wildlife refuge.
• Debert’s water utility is sourced from a high-quality aquifer located beneath the park so we are careful about how we manage our land activities. New infrastructure such as the water tower ensures that quality water is transported safely to our businesses.
Stormwater Management
By their very nature, business parks have a great deal of impermeable surfaces. Large buildings and truck yards create significant stormwater runoff with little opportunity for ground absorption or evaporation back into the atmosphere. The Debert Business Park has explored alternative stormwater management techniques to demonstrate how stormwater can be managed onsite prior to release into the stormwater system. A small amount of onsite detention can reduce peak flow of a storm event to prevent flooding and expensive upgrades to the stormwater system.
Existing Stormwater Projects
Porous Pavement
A portion of the parking lot at the Administration Building was repaved with porous asphalt. Constructed without small, fine material typically found in asphalt, the porous asphalt has gaps that prevent water from sitting on the surface of the parking lot.
Rain Garden
A rain garden was installed to manage stormwater from the front parking area at the Debert Incubator Mall. The rain garden is designed to absorb water from a small rain event. Even in extreme conditions, the storage offered by the rain garden can hold the peak flow of a storm event and reduce stress on the stormwater system and natural watercourses.
Roundabout Construction
Debert Business Park is working to construct a roundabout at ext 13 on Highway 104. The purpose of the roundabout is to provide safe access to the Park’s lands fronting on Highway 104. The challenge with the location is that a considerable amount of stormwater passes through the area on its way to the Chiganois River. As part of the development, the Municipality of Colchester intends to create a stormwater park to manage the flow and improve the water quality prior to release into the natural systems.
Debert Gateway Concept, Ekistics Planning and Design
As part of our commitment to the environment and sustainability, Debert Business Park is always open to other stormwater management projects. If you or your company would like to explore new or innovative stormwater solutions as part of your property or business development, please feel to contact us at 1-902-890-6780