Windsor Regional Hospital (WRH) has taken an important next step toward consolidating and expanding its facilities.

On October 16, the hospital announced that had officially acquired a 60-acre site at the corner of County Road 42 and the 9th Concession. The purchase-of-sale agreement was originally signed in 2015, but took until this month to close, given the time to meet all previously-agreed conditions such as proper site zoning and ministry approval.

"This development puts the future Windsor-Essex Hospitals System on solid ground," said WRH president and CEO David Musyj. "Today, we are taking a giant step toward a world-class hospital system for our region."

The 60-acre site includes room for the hospital to develop and grow over time to meet the region's needs. It is located within 10 kilometres from a majority of WRH patients and staff and will tie into the Transit Windsor bus system, with service to the new hospital when it opens.

Under the agreement, the current owners will transfer the land to Windsor Regional Hospital, at a price of $100,000 per acre—or $6 million.

The new single-site acute care hospital will replace the two existing outdated acute care campuses. It will include a helipad so patients can be transported by helicopter to and from the site, parking for patients, visitors and staff, and at least 80 percent single-patient rooms.

"Today's announcement has been literally years in the making," said Dave Cooke, co-chair of the WRH program and services steering committee. "Now that we have a site, we are ready to begin work on the next stages of planning so we can get shovels in the ground for a state-of-the-art acute care hospital."

The purchase will allow stage two planning to begin as soon as the province provides funding. The next steps of the planning process will take approximately 18 months to complete and include a detailed description of the programs to be delivered, the staffing, equipment and space required, and preliminary designs.

Premier Doug Ford has said a new hospital for Windsor-Essex is his number-one priority for the region.