Windsor Regional Hospital says a major milestone in the region’s long-awaited new hospital project is finally just weeks away. President and CEO Kristin Kennedy announced Thursday the first phase of construction on the new Fancsy Family Hospital is expected to begin in July. “It’s a very long time coming, probably over a decade,” Kennedy said. “But really an exciting and monumental time.” The announcement comes just days after Indigenous leaders, hospital staff, and community partners gathered at the future hospital site for a sacred fire ceremony to honour the land, seek blessings for the project, and mark another step toward construction. While no exact groundbreaking date has been set, Kennedy said there are still several things to coordinate before shovels officially hit the ground. “There’s a lot of moving pieces, as you can imagine, with construction and having many partners on site to work through hydro construction and many of the other entities that we need to help get that shovel in the ground,” she said. For a project more than a decade in the making, the announcement marks a significant turning point. “As we move into July through the summer, it’ll be really great for our communities to be able to see some execution that they’ve been long awaiting,” said Kennedy. She also credited hospital staff, community partners, and political leaders who helped move the project across the finish line. “It’s transformational,” she said. “And it really does highlight the work of so many individuals across Windsor, Essex County, and here specifically at Windsor Regional Hospital.” Construction won’t begin with the hospital itself rising out of the ground. Kennedy said crews will first install fencing and hoarding around the site before bringing in equipment. “It will be a process,” she said. “The second phase over the summer months will really be the excavation phase, where we start to really see the shovels in the ground.” Once work begins, it will be the first visible sign of progress on a project residents have been waiting years to see become reality.
