Windsor's new mega-hospital expected to be built by 2031

Windsor's new mega-hospital is expected to be fully built in nine years time, officials with Windsor Regional Hospital say.

In a news release Tuesday, Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH) said the tendering process is expected to begin in early 2025 and construction will follow that in the spring of 2027. The construction process, according to WRH, is expected to be complete by about 2031. 

The hospital said these details were released Tuesday in Infrastructure Ontario's May 2022 Market Update. 

"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 [request for proposal] date and shovel in the ground date. [Ontario] Premier [Doug] Ford made a promise to our region and delivered on that promise," David Musyj, president and CEO of Windsor Regional Hospital, said in the news release.

In January, project director lead for the hospital Paul Landry, said construction could likely begin by the summer of 2026 — but that was a rough timeline. 

Funding was announced by Ford and health minister Christine Elliot in October 2021, which WRH said allowed it to move forward with Stage 2 planning, including the assembly of a project management team. 

The province allocated $9.8 million to support the planning of the acute care hospital, which will be located on a 24-hectare site at County Road 42 and the 9th Concession, near Windsor Airport. 

The facility is intended to replace the aging campuses of Windsor Regional Hospital but there has been criticism of the plan on the grounds that it would leave the downtown core without a hospital.

Heads to market in 2026

The project management team is taking charge of the planning, said WRH. There are also 38 user groups, which represent different clinical and non-clinical support service areas, that are working on a "functional program" for the new facility. 

According to WRH, the functional program includes details around future services, activity volumes, staffing levels, new technologies and space requirements.

In the coming months, architects and engineers are expected to use these plans to draft up an idea of what the building will structurally look like, such as the layout of rooms in each department. 

The hospital said that the project management team is on track to have this planning and a revised cost estimate to the Ministry of Health by early next year. 

The Ministry of Health has previously pegged the price tag at more than $1 billion, while Windsor Regional Hospital has estimated the cost to be around $2 billion. 

After the submission to the Ministry of Health, the hospital said more planning and design development will need to be completed.