After their busiest year of construction to date, the Gordie Howe International Bridge project team has confirmed that the project is scheduled to open to the public in the fall of 2025.

Originally, the project was scheduled for completion in November 2024 with opening anticipated by the end of that year. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed that schedule by about a year, with the new completion date now arranged for September 2025.

The team says the pandemic disruptions were even more prevalent on this project given the differing applicable restrictions in the US and Canada, combined with the ramping up of construction activities in early 2020.

Various governments, including the Governments of Ontario and the State of Michigan, issued hundreds of emergency and executive orders that applied to the Gordie Howe International Bridge project resulting in schedule and cost relief that is contemplated in the project agreement between Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority (WDBA) and Bridging North America (BNA).

The budget for the project has also changed, rising from $5.7 billion initially to a final price of $6.4 billion.

“After a three-year pandemic and considering the size and complexity of the Gordie Howe International Bridge project, our project team is pleased that the impact to the construction schedule is limited to only 10 months beyond the original contracted completion date and that we could agree on a reasonable adjustment to the contract value,” said WDBA CEO Charl van Niekerk. “With safety as our top priority, we will continue to work together to deliver this much needed infrastructure to the thousands of eager travellers ready to cross North America’s longest cable-stayed bridge.”

Over 2022 and 2023, the project team was able to make significant progress on bridge and road deck construction, stay cable installation and port of entry facilities which helped drive the overall construction schedule.

In 2024, the two components of the bridge deck over the Detroit River will connect, the last of the 216 stay cables will be installed, and the point of entry agency buildings and the concrete for the I-75 ramps will be completed.

Following construction completion, the project team will finalize operating processes and testing to fully prepare the facilities for traffic crossing the border starting in fall 2025.

“Throughout the pandemic, BNA made progress on the project by keeping people working while also keeping them safe,” said BNA interim CEO David Henderson. “We were able to do so by resequencing construction activities in a manner that aligned with provincial and state health and safety orders and directives and our own rigorous safety protocols. Through the great progress made in 2023 and collaboration with WDBA, MDOT, and all our project partners, we are happy to have minimized the impacts of the pandemic.”

Recognizing that an extended construction period impacts the project host communities, WDBA says it has budgeted for a one-year extension of the project’s community benefits plan.

The authority will distribute an additional $3 million Cdn to residents and business owners on both sides of the project over the 2025–26 fiscal year.