No date yet for construction of Gordie Howe International Bridge

By David Lafreniere

The Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority has extended the deadline for submissions to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the Gordie Howe International Bridge by four months.

Three potential private-sector partners, selected as preferred bidders, now have until May 2018 to submit proposals while preparation work on both sides of the Detroit River continue.

Christina Vickery, a project manager for the WDBA, said she expects the selected construction firm to begin preliminary construction before the deal receives financial approval in September 2018.

“We will get an understanding of the timeline once we get the proposals back from the proponent teams,” said Vickery. She said the proposals will include the cost of the project and their construction schedule.

According to Vickery, once the WDBA financially closes the deal with a contractor, they will be able to provide a construction timeline, what the timeline will look like and when the new bridge will open.

Part of the preliminary work for the new bridge has been assembling the land needed for the project.

“There were a number of commercial properties in the area on the Canadian side that we had to acquire,” said Director of Communications for the WDBA Mark Butler. “One is close to the river. The other commercial properties we didn’t need entirety. We needed a portion of those properties and all the property on the Canadian side has been acquired.”

MDOT is working on purchasing over 600 parcels of land for the footprint of the bridge and the highway interchange.

“We have about 80 per cent of that under control. Meaning, we have that in possession and the properties are vacant,” said Wieferich. “When you add on those in the condemnation court order filing process we have about 93 per cent of the property under the control of the department of transportation.”

He said MDOT is working with WBDA to take care of the sites and to make sure land is ready to turn over to the contractor when bridge construction begins.

The building of a second span of the existing Ambassador Bridge will not affect the Gordie Howe Bridge project, according to Andrew Doctoroff, a special projects advisor from the Michigan Governor’s office.

Doctoroff said the Gordie Howe Bridge project has always assumed there will be two bridges crossing the Detroit River.

“The conditional permit issued by Transport Canada expressly states the building of a second span is going to be a replacement span conditioned on the demolition of the existing Ambassador Bridge,” said Doctoroff.

He said he was speaking from Michigan’s perspective and believes the Canadian government would agree that a second span of the Ambassodor Bridge will have zero impact on the Gordie Howe Bridge project.