NRI

Seems like the rubber industry in Toronto has gone and all but vanished. Two years ago another rubber manufacturing operation, Viceroy Rubber, very close to this location was converted to a self storage facility. National Rubber Industries / NRI also had another, small operation near this location which was also in the junction that closed up before this one Symington Ave. This site was previously known as W.D.Beath & Son Ltd in the 1920’s and NRI was established in 1927. Before it was demolished this past winter it was a large 200,000 sq. ft facility that once produced several hundred different rubber based products and recycled a few million tires a year. Apparently NRI was a “green company” recycling tires into other products using a unique “tire recovery technology“. It was located next to an active rail line on Symington Avenue which has a mix of everything, industry, schools, commercial buildings, houses and artists’ lofts.

When you walked through the building it quickly became apparent that you were walking through several different buildings that were all connected together, each built in different time periods. The offices, lab, warehouse and loading area were all located adjacent to each other. At some point it came to be owned by National Rubber (NRI Industries) which was a substantially larger company with another small location in the “Junction” near Keele Street. This operation also closed when they moved operations to Mississauga at their Cawthra plant. From online public sources, it appears NRI had a dismal safety record in the early 1990’s which lead to the heftiest fine that could be leveled against a company by the Workers Compensation Board (WCB) for half a million dollars. We also found some nuclear warning signs up, but don’t really know how “Americum 241″ is related to manufacturing processes of rubber. If someone could clarify, that would be great. Of the many locations in Toronto that sit and languish with demolition signs for years, this specific series of buildings came down quickly, in less than three months from when the first demolition signs were posted in late December, 2008. It’s the fastest I’ve ever seen a plant get demolished. It was abandoned in late 2007 and I remember going to look at it in 2006 when it was still active.  Symington isn’t a major roadway, so you can easily miss it. I explored NRI early New Years Eve in 2008 and by February 2009, half the building was gone. Although the building had a few charms, and the loading dock reminded me of Tower Automotive, I’m not quite sure why everyone else seemed to be so crazy about this place. As of August 2011, the lot still sits empty awaiting further development.

Photos by Kathy and Jan.

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