Markham is creating an innovation hub the size of roughly 600 soccer fields, its mayor says

The mayor of Markham is using a major technology conference to tell startup enterprises that his city north of Toronto is preparing a large parcel of land to be the home of a new innovation hub.

Mayor Frank Scarpitti says Markham has designated about 770 hectares (1,900 acres) of private and city-owned lands that will bedeveloped as a home for innovators.

He says it will be one of the largest innovation districts in North America and be close to the Canadian offices of a number ofmajor technology companies such as IBM and American chip-makersAdvance Micro Devices and Qualcomm.

His pitch to the conference camein a Wednesday afternoon session.

Scarpitti says the Markham hub will give new and growing companies the opportunity to set up shop very close to each other, providing an environment that helps foster successive collaboration among startup companies.

"At the end of the day, this may attract a big employer but what we're providing for are the companies that are starting up, scaling up, looking to grow and looking to attract talent that will help them innovate."

Markham was one of the communities that worked with the City of Toronto in a bid to attract Amazon's HQ2 a second global headquarters for the online retailer and technology developer.

Amazon later chose two locations one in the Queen's borough of New York City and the other in Arlington, Va., a suburb ofWashington, D.C. The company later dropped the NYC plan due to opposition by some politicians and activists.