Nine-year timeline revealed for Windsor’s new mega hospital

The proposed site of the new acute care hospital at County Road 42 and Concession Road 9 in Windsor on June 3, 2020. (Rich Garton / CTV Windsor)

A timeline has been announced for Windsor’s new mega hospital, with construction expected to start in 2027.

The new Windsor/Essex Acute Care Hospital received multiple mentions in the Ontario 2022 Budget and specific details were released Tuesday as part of Infrastructure Ontario’s (IO) May 2022 Market Update.

The tendering process is expected to start early 2025 and construction is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2027.

The announcement follows the October 2021 funding announcement by Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliot, that allowed the hospital to move forward with Stage 2 planning.

“The new acute care hospital project has moved ahead aggressively in the last 18 months,” said hospital CEO David Musyj. “We went from no funding for Stage 2 to full funding and now a fixed RFP date and shovel in the ground date.”

Work on Stage 2 planning began immediately following the Stage 2 funding announcement in October.

A Project Management Team was assembled to lead planning and 38 User Groups, representing different clinical and non-clinical support service areas in the hospital, are currently developing a Functional Program for the new facility.

The Functional Program is a detailed planning document outlining future services, activity volumes, staffing levels, new technologies, space requirements and important adjacencies.

In the next few months, a team of architects and engineers will use the Functional Program to create block schematic plans for the building.

These early plans will illustrate how all the rooms in each department will be organized throughout the hospital both horizontally and vertically. The project team is on track to have this part of the planning ready to submit to the Ministry of Health, along with a revised cost estimate, by early next year.

Following this, additional work is required to further develop the plan and design so it is ready to take to market in 2026. During this time, the hospital will work closely with Infrastructure Ontario and follow a detailed process to select a developer to further the design into the working drawings required to build the hospital and complete the project.

“We have a lot of exciting work ahead of us,” said Musyj. “But now we can focus on gettingeverything in place so we can start the tendering process in 2025; break ground and start building this much needed and long-awaited state-of-the-art hospital, in the spring 2027.”

The construction period is expected to last approximately four years, with completion targeted around 2031.