I found this interesting article, dated yesterday, February 3rd, explaining where the financing for the new highway connecting the 401 to the new border crossing is coming from... tendering and not to mention the expected time table! Good news though, local companies will likely get some work according to the story.
From Daily Commercial News, (Reed Construction Data)
Actual Article can be read HERE.
February 3, 2009
Infrastructure Ontario
IO chooses alternative financing and procurement model for Windsor highway
PATRICIA WILLIAMS
staff writer
Construction of the 10-kilometre highway connecting Highway 401 to a new border crossing in west Windsor will be undertaken as an alternative financing and procurement (AFP) project, Infrastructure Ontario (IO) has confirmed.
Paulette den Elzen, project communications manager at the provincial Crown corporation, said requests for qualifications are expected to be issued this spring or summer for the Windsor-Essex Parkway.
Construction could get under way by the end of this year on the below-grade, six-lane highway with 11 tunnels and a four-lane service road, the first major highway project undertaken by IO.
Cost estimates have not been released by IO. But the parkway is usually referred to as a $1.6 billion project.
“We’re all for it,” said Rob Bradford, executive director of the Ontario Road Builders’ Association.
“It’s a lot of new work. It is going to increase the pie significantly.”
He said some of the larger companies that are members of his association are taking a close look at the project.
“Whether or not they would decide to bid it, or be able to wrap up the required financing, remains to be seen,” he said. “But they are certainly looking at it seriously.”
In Windsor, the Heavy Construction Association initially had taken “a strong position” that the highway should be traditionally tendered to maximize the potential for local content.
However, executive director Jim Lyons said Infrastructure Ontario has since become “sensitized” to the association’s concerns.
“I am now comfortable that there will be contracting-out to local firms,” he said. “It is just a matter of how much.”
Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation are targeting completion of the project in 2013.
Bradford said that while international consortia are expected to take an interest in the project, ORBA believes “the wherewithal and capacity” exists in the province to undertake the project.
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