KITCHENER - It used to be the biggest leather tannery in the British Empire, and today it is the world's largest startup accelerator that supports technology entrepreneurs at no cost, as long as one of the founders graduated from the University of Waterloo.

Opening ceremonies Friday for the university's 37,000-square-foot Velocity Garage attracted scores of people from government, academia and the tech sector. Currently, more than 80 startups are working in the space on the main floor of the Tannery inside 151 Charles St. W.

For Velocity director Jay Shah, it is a special homecoming of sorts. The young engineer points to a space near the windows where BufferBox was located in 2012. Shah was one of the co-founders of BufferBox, which was bought by Google for $17 million. After working at Google as a product manager, Shah took over as director of Velocity nine weeks ago.

"It was a lot smaller," Shah said in an interview about his startup days in the earlier version of the Velocity Garage.

"There were maybe 20 companies, at most. And today in this facility we are at 80, so it is quite a bit bigger."

The mission, he said, is to help make better technology companies. And the growth in the program makes for some challenges.

"The scale that we are operating at is entirely new, there is nothing really for us to learn from locally that has operated at this scale," Shah said.

"The number of companies is one thing, but also breadth of companies - we have a wet lab here, a hardware shop, an electrical prototyping room, and a biosafety lab," Shah said.

The building Shah is standing in once housed The Lang Tanning Co. It was founded in the 1850s and was an economic pillar of the town then known as Busy Berlin.

During the First World War the tannery produced the soles of boots for soldiers fighting in the trenches of France. During the Second World War the tannery made the linings for aircraft fuel tanks. Before and after the wars it made harnesses for horse teams and tanned the hides for many other leather products.

It is the biggest and most high-profile symbol of economic transition in the city, from the old economy of the 19th century to the new economy of the 21 {+s} t century.

The University of Waterloo had a lot of support over the years from the City of Kitchener and the provincial government for the Velocity program. Queen's Park has funded Velocity for the past five years.

More than 175 companies started in the Velocity program, attracting $425 million in investments and creating 1,200 jobs, said Daiene Vernile, MPP for Kitchener-Centre.

"Ontario is very interested in this because we know that you are going to be providing the jobs of the future, and those are well-paying jobs," Vernile said.

The Velocity program has served as a template for others, and inspired the provincial government to fund startups across Ontario during 2016 with on-campus entrepreneurship programs - 1,250 startups creating 2,370 jobs, generating sales of more than $55 million and attracting $81.1 million in investments.

"I think it's all very impressive," Vernile said in a presentation Friday. "We look to every young person in this room, and I encourage you to do your very best, make the most of your time here, make your dream a reality."

Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic was on hand to see what was done with the $500,000 the municipality provided for the expansion. Most of that money was spent on what's called a wet lab for biotechnology startups.

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"Very excited to see Velocity opening up in this expanded, new space," Vrbanovic said in an interview.

About 50 startups have moved out of the Tannery and set up shop in downtown Kitchener. They employ about 900 people.

"It's been phenomenal," Vrbanovic said.

The University of Waterloo began its startup support program with the Velocity Residence in 2008. That was the brainchild of Sean Van Koughnett and his boss Bud Walker, who used to work at the university. They set up a student dorm for young entrepreneurs. The program grew from there.

"It symbolizes the brilliance of our students," Feridun Hamdullahpur, president of the University of Waterloo, said in a presentation Friday.

In a fast-changing world the university, and its partners in government, have found a great way to differentiate themselves, he said.

"I celebrate the successes of Velocity on almost a daily basis, but today is a very special day that requires extra-special celebration," Hamdullahpur said.

He cited one of the hardware startups that graduated from Velocity and went on to raise the biggest investment of any other startup in Canada this year - Thalmic Labs.

"When I look at the success of Thalmic Labs and the Myo wrist band, I am able to see a little bit of the future. You enabled me to see that future, and it looks so brilliant," Hamdullahpur said.

As the speeches wrapped up, Shah made a point of thanking Communitech and Google for continually supporting Velocity and the startup ecosystem in the region.

"We are really having a global impact," Shah said.