New bridge unlikely to open until late 2024: documents

Report says schedule driven by availability of land parcels on U.S. side

The first vehicles will not travel across the Gordie Howe International Bridge until late 2024 — another six years — according to the project’s contractor. Financial documents released this week by S&P Global Ratings for the first time provide specific details on cost estimates and construction timelines for the longawaited Detroit River border crossing project.

A global consortium of companies — known as Bridging North America — has been selected by the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority as the project’s contractor. The financial documents had to be filed with S&P — a Wall Street firm — in order to secure bonds for the project and launch construction. The Howe project includes a six-lane cable-stayed bridge — to be the largest in North America — customs plazas, plus a threekilometre feeder road and new interchanges to link with the I-75 freeway in Detroit. That feeder road will include four road bridges, five pedestrian bridges and a railway crossing overpass.

The date for financial close for the Howe project is listed as Sept. 28 with construction to start the very next day, according to the documents.

The feeder road in Detroit, Canadian port of entry in Windsor and the bridge itself are listed as being completed by November, 2023. But the port of entry in Detroit and U.S. customs buildings are not listed in the documents as being finished until May 2024 with a projected opening date for the crossing of Nov. 30, 2024.

The completion date is four years later than the original completion date of 2020 first presented by WDBA’s board of directors a few years ago.

Total construction time of 74 months is also far beyond early projections that ranged from between 40 to 48 months.

“The project’s overall completion schedule of 74 months is driven by the availability of several land parcels on the U.S. side rather than the complexity of the project,” said the S&P report. “The project’s critical path is driven by the construction schedule of the U.S. POE and not bridge completion.”

A true construction schedule and contract value still must be finalized and will not be known until financial close at the end of September, WDBA spokesman Mark Butler said Thursday. “It is important to remember that this border infrastructure project includes four components: the Canadian and U.S. ports of entry, the I-75 interchange work and the bridge itself,” he said. “Each of these are significant undertakings in their own right.

“The Gordie Howe International Bridge project is the largest infrastructure project along the Canada-U.S. border and one of the largest anywhere in North America.” The “pre-sale report” by S&P has a fixed cost from BNA for the bridge project at C$3.46 billion — right in the middle of early cost estimates that ranged widely in recent years from $2 billion to $5 billion. The financial documents indicate the Canadian government, through WDBA, will pay C$2.74 billion to BNA during construction of the Howe bridge in monthly instalments known as “progress payments.”

The remaining cost of the project will rely on bonds and financing which Bridging North America is seeking to secure from Wall Street. Ownership within Bridging North America is split between ACS Infrastructure Canada Inc. (40 per cent), Fluor Canada Ltd. (40 per cent) and Aecon Concessions (20 per cent) — essentially the same companies that built the Herb Gray Parkway. WDBA will retain all toll revenues after the bridge is open. BNA will receive payments for operating the bridge under the 30-year agreement which will conclude in 2054.

After assessing the project and all risks involved — both during construction and throughout the 30-year life that Bridging North America will maintain the bridge — S&P assigned a preliminary rating of A- and a stable outlook for the project.