Nova Scotia gives up attempts to find buyer for failed wind tower plant

HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia government has given up on attempts to find a buyer for one of Atlantic Canada’s largest industrial sites.

In a news release, Business Minister Geoff MacLellan says for more than two years “every effort” was made to find a buyer for the former DSME wind plant in Trenton without success.

MacLellan says a court-appointed receiver will transfer ownership of the Trenton lands to Crown-owned Nova Scotia Lands Inc. effective Sept. 7 and will begin auctioning off the remaining equipment at the site.

He says Nova Scotia Lands will explore other economic opportunities for the 430,000-square-foot facility that sits on 116 acres of land in the heart of Trenton.

The previous NDP government took a 49 per cent equity stake in the plant in 2010, committing $59.4 million to the business.

The wind tower plant was eventually closed in February 2016 and placed in receivership.

Operations at the facility wrapped up less than a month after the province said it wouldn’t provide any more public money for a plant that had hoped to develop the capacity to produce 250 wind turbine towers and 200 blade sets per year.

“Now is the time to move forward and begin the next phase,” MacLellan said in Friday’s release.

The government’s move comes after MacLellan had extended the deadline to find a buyer on three occasions this year alone — with the latest extension announced in mid-June.

The first round of bids for the property were abandoned in late 2016 after the province rejected three, including two of only $1.

Nova Scotia Lands has helped redevelop other industrial sites including the former tar ponds site in Sydney, N.S., and the former Bowater Mill site near Liverpool, N.S.