Work on the South Niagara Hospital project is starting to take shape.

The hospital announced in late May that construction crews have started to work on the building’s superstructure.

At its deepest point, the South Niagara Hospital basement floor is five metres below ground level. Steel piles hammered into the bedrock to support the building foundation extend an additional 18 metres below that. About 75 percent of underground work has been completed, including stormwater and sanitary sewers, waterlines, and electrical.

In total, the building will span 1.3 million square feet and stand 12 storeys tall. Construction of the structure is expected to be complete by April 2026, with work on the exterior targeted for completion a few months later.

"We are almost a year into the construction of the South Niagara Hospital, and EllisDon Infrastructure Healthcare has been making great progress,” said Patrick Topping, Director of Transaction and Construction with Niagara Health’s redevelopment team. “From a distance, it’s hard to see what’s happening during construction on the substructure, but now that crews have started work on the superstructure, changes are going to come much quicker and it will be more exciting to watch the project evolve.”

Currently there are approximately 160 workers on-site daily. That figure is expected to rise to more than 1,000 during the peak construction period.

Located in Niagara Falls at the corner of Montrose and Biggar roads, the South Niagara Hospital Project is scheduled for completion in 2028.

It will offer a full scope of hospital services, including emergency, critical care, diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical services, and feature Centres of Excellence in complex care, wellness in aging and stroke.

The fixed-price contract to design, build, finance and maintain the facility was awarded in February 2023 at a value of $3.6 billion.