Axalta Coating Systems

Founded in Germany in 1866, under the name Herberts Gmbh, Axalta Coating Systems started as a carriage painting company, before moving on to cars and other automobiles. The company eventually became a part of the DuPont Corporation, under the name DuPont Performance Coatings. In 2013, DPC was sold to the Carlyle Group, being renamed as Axalta Coating Systems. In November 2014, Axalta went public on the stock market, and has been independent since, with the Carlyle Group pulling out their last ownership stake in 2015.

This specific factory belonging to Axalta Coating Systems seems to have closed without much fanfare on the 28nd of November, 2022, having just been announced a week prior. The only sources I can find for the closure online are from reviews on Glassdoor and other similar websites, mentioning the closure along with poor management.

On my way from Toronto, riding on the GO Train that I definitely paid for, I looked out the window just after passing Ajax GO, and saw this location with an excavator parked next to it. Knowing there wasn’t much time left for this place, I decided I had to go ASAP. And so I did, going the next evening. The rear of the factory was mostly empty, clearly the first part going to be demolished, but the front of the building close to the road had a lot more left behind. The offices still had a decent amount of things left in them, despite demo crews seemingly starting to remove ceiling tiles from the area, and the front of the factory still had liquid/gas tanks split between two floors, with pipes running all around them. Needless to say, I spent a ton of time exploring this place. I don’t usually upload my photos as soon as I get back, but this place was cool enough that I wanted others to go and see it before it was gone forever. Hopefully at least one other person did. I am unsure of the status of this location at the moment.