Woodstock, Ontario (October 2, 2007) -- Marking its entry into the Canadian industrial real estate market, IDI has broken ground on a 24-acre site in Woodstock, Ontario, on which it will develop two warehouse/distribution facilities totaling 457,482 square feet.

Construction is under way on 123,537-square-foot Building A and 333,945-square-foot Building H at CommerceWay Business Park. The master-planned park, developed by the City of Woodstock, is located where Highways 401 and 403 merge.

The Chicago office of IDI, a full-service industrial real estate company based in Atlanta, is overseeing development of the project. Building A, a rear-load facility featuring 28-foot clear-height ceilings, is scheduled for completion in December and Building H, a rear-load facility with 30-foot clear-height ceilings, is slated for completion in March 2008. The site offers extensive trailer-storage capacity.

Building A will offer users space options starting at 20,000 square feet and Building H will provide space options starting at 80,000 square feet. Both facilities offer frontage along Highway 401, which has been dubbed Canada’s “Main Street.”

“We were very careful in selecting a site for our first development in Canada,” said Tom George, senior vice president and regional development officer in IDI’s Chicago development office. “CommerceWay Business Park is located about halfway between Toronto and Detroit directly off Highway 401, which makes the park ideal for regional distributors, exporters and importers.”

The cooperation of the City of Woodstock was a key factor in IDI’s decision to develop its first Canadian project at CommerceWay Business Park.

“From our first meeting with Mayor Michael Harding, he and the city have been accommodating and willing to work with us on key details to move this project forward,” George said. “We were very encouraged and impressed with the amount of time the mayor and city staff were willing to put into this project.”

One important arrangement the city worked out with IDI was the completion of Commerce Way [road] from the Highway 401 interchange to the IDI project site and the underground installation of electrical utilities.

In addition to benefiting from its proximity to a large population base in the U.S. and Canada, Woodstock is an attractive location for distributors due to the major manufacturing operations located in the city. Toyota Motor Corp. will open a $1 billion assembly plant in 2008 and Hino Motors recently established a truck-assembly plant in the city.

“We’re very pleased with the successful partnership we’ve established with the city,” added Jeff Smith, vice president of leasing and development in IDI’s Chicago office. “This project represents a great opportunity for IDI.”

First Gulf Development Corp., an Ontario-based development and construction firm, is the general contractor for the project. The Kitchener and Toronto offices of Colliers International have been selected to market and lease the properties.

IDI (www.idi.com) is a national, full-service industrial real estate developer based in Atlanta, providing strategically located properties throughout the U.S. to meet its tenants’ distribution, warehouse and light-manufacturing needs. To date, IDI has developed 115 million square feet of industrial space valued at $5.6 billion. IDI has development offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Memphis and Philadelphia. Also, IDI Services Group (www.idisg.com) provides comprehensive property management, leasing and construction management services, currently managing more than 60 million square feet of property for IDI tenants, including third-party owners such as pension funds and insurance companies.