Former Grace Hospital site the future home of Global Village Windsor

Despite the pandemic slowing progress, the developers for the former Grace Hospital site are focused on making their plans a reality in the years ahead.

Fairmount Properties provided an update about their intentions for the site on Wednesday afternoon.

The $100 million dollar project will be known as Global Village Windsor, and affiliation agreements with both the University of Windsor and St. Clair College have already been agreed to.

The hospital, which was at the corner of University Avenue West and Crawford Avenue, closed in 2004 and was demolished in 2013, standing empty for nine years.

Once complete the development is complete it will have healthcare offerings, retail, grocery operators and restaurants.

Randy Ruttenberg, Fairmount's Founder and Principal, says one of the goal's of the project is housing nearly 500 international students in a safe and affordable manner.

"We want to create a great landing spot for students coming from other countries, and ultimately we want to be able to retain them. This is an amazing talent and knowledge pool of folks that we don't want to go back home, or to Chicago or Detroit, we want them to stay here in Windsor," he stated.

Another goal laid out in the original submission was retaining healthcare offerings within the submarket.

Ruttenberg says to meet this goal, Fairmount Properties signed a Letter of Intent with a major operator of healthcare practice groups who will lease 14,000 sq. ft. of space within the Global Village.

"So everything from urgent care, to chiropractic, to psychology, to urology, to imaging. We have a Letter of Intent for that use so we've checked the box in that category as well."

While Fairmount Properties will likely maintain a local architectural production partner, the company has engaged Callison RTKL to design the transformation initiative.

Ruttenberg says while the delays related to the pandemic were disappointing, the time was used wisely.

"We did not sit down idly, we used that time meeting with people, talking to people," he continued. "Doing a lot of the planning that sometimes happens later in the process earlier, so that we measured twice on the front end so we could cut once when we're ready to move forward."

Fairmount is in advance discussions with two grocery operators, one from Canada and one from Michigan, and will select one by year end. 

Officials say this will be a smaller format store between 9500-12,000 sq. ft. with a focus on produce, meats, seafood, everyday staples, and prepared meals. 

They've also had preliminary discussions with operators within their target categories of health and fitness, coffee, fast casual food offerings, sit down restaurants, and smaller boutiques.

Fairmount officials anticipate making final decisions in six to 12 months.

Ruttenberg says at this point they're looking at somewhere between five and six storeys for the project once it's complete.

"There's probably a lot more demand than we'll be able to accommodate here, but this is a district and people don't want to feel like they can't move around. So we'll make sure that there's the right amount of parking, the right amount of spacing on the sidewalks, that type of thing," Ruttenberg said.

Fairmount Properties is buying the land from the City as part of the process for $1-million. 

Officials say construction should be starting in about a year's time, and a completion date is being targeted for July 2025.