Matt Weingarden / Lakeshore News Reporter
Windsor Regional Hospital has announced a projected time frame for building the new Windsor/Essex Acute Care Hospital.
Specific details were released today as part of Infrastructure Ontario’s (IO) May 2022 Market Update indicating the tendering process to start early 2025 and construction 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, which 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. We went from no funding for Stage 2 to full funding and now a fixed RFP date and shovel in the ground date. Premier Ford made a promise to our region and delivered on that promise,” said David Musyj, president and CEO, Windsor Regional Hospital. “Additionally, I cannot thank our City of Windsor Mayor, Drew Dilkens, Essex County Warden, Gary McNamara, community leaders and residents throughout our region enough, for making this historic project become a reality.”
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. I
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,” added Musyj. “But now we can focus on getting everything 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.
To learn more about the project, subscribe to the project email list, share your ideas and ask questions, please visit www.windsorhospitals.ca.
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