The Windsor Construction Association is elated work has begun on the new $5.7-billion Gordie Howe International Bridge.
Construction officially began Friday with a visit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Canadian Port of Entry in west Windsor.
It's expected to create 2,500 jobs and association Executive Director Jim Lyons says the local trades will get a lot of work from the project, but there will be workers needed from outside of the area.
"The trades here certainly will be in full employment, but at the end of the day, there will be workers that are necessary to come in from other parts of the country to augment what we might not have here in local labour."
The bridge is expected to be completed by 2024.
Lyons says this is a complicated project.
"It is a different baby than building a roadway, there is obviously a lot more material in this particular project than there would be labour and because it is spread over a long period of time, we are not going to see the huge peaks of construction workers like we did on the parkway."
He says the workers will require some training for the bridge project.
"There will likely be some specific training programs required for rescue, I think no different than when they were working on the Ambassador Bridge and there was an accident there some time ago but there are certain parameters that they will be required to undertake when they are working overtop of water."
The 2,500 jobs will include direct hires and sub-contractors.
The 853 metre span between the two towers will be the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America and the seventh longest in the world.