Windsor’s “long game” was the focus of Mayor Drew Dilkens’ State of the City address Wednesday — laying out a vision for the city’s future. Much of that vision builds on familiar ground, including the 0 per cent tax increase passed by city council earlier this year, investment in Sandwich South and job growth tied to projects like NextStar Energy and Minth. But the mayor also shared new updates — from a potential future for Windsor Arena, to new investment leads and progress on the region’s next hospital. Windsor Arena could be repurposed to support homelessness response The City of Windsor is exploring a new potential use for the long-vacant Windsor Arena as part of its response to homelessness, mental health and addiction. During his State of the City address, Dilkens said the site could be repurposed to support the nearby Homelessness and Housing Help Hub — known as H4. “We think that there are some models in place in other communities that would be interesting to replicate here that would give a future pathway to get some folks off the street, and a pathway to treatment, but a pathway to housing as well,” Dilkens said. The H4 currently operates out of the former Water World building and has been described by officials as a temporary site. Following the speech, Dilkens said the idea is still in early stages, with costs, funding and partnerships yet to be determined. He suggested using Windsor Arena could help relieve pressure on both the H4 site and nearby businesses. “The repurposing of Windsor Arena would relieve some of the pressure that business owners see when they call up and they say, ‘What am I supposed to do when someone’s sleeping in front of my door?’ That’s who we’re trying to help here,” said Dilkens. The move comes after the city previously explored acquiring land on Wellington Avenue for a permanent H4 location in 2024 — plans that were ultimately scrapped due to cost. “The cost that we were going to incur was astronomical. We didn’t have the budget for that, so we backed out,” Dilkens said. If all goes Windsor’s way, 1,600 new jobs could be coming to the city Windsor is pursuing 15 high-potential business leads that could bring an estimated $1.6 billion in investment and roughly 1,600 jobs to the region, Dilkens said during his speech Wednesday. He acknowledged ongoing economic uncertainty tied to tariffs and global instability but said Windsor remains an attractive destination for investment. “Because of the chaos in the United States, Canada is an even more attractive location,” Dilkens said, pointing to trade policy instability fuelled by the U.S. president. “The chaos that Donald Trump has created is actually helping us in the conversation. From our perspective, the pipeline is actually very robust and I’m very optimistic about what I see in that pipeline and the traction that it’s making,” he said. Ryan Donally, president and CEO of the Windsor Essex Chamber of Commerce, said Windsor-Essex’s manufacturing base and geographic location work in the region’s favour when it comes to potential investment. “As a global company is considering the biggest risk of their economic life to expand into Canada, they look at places like Windsor,” said Donally. “We’re not changing our geography. We’re always going to be neighbours to the United States. So, we will always have that geographic access, plus you layer on the Carney government is trying to create more trade relationships around the world.” New Windsor-Essex hospital nearing next phase, tender expected soon The long-awaited Fanscy Family Hospital is moving closer to its next phase, with a tender expected to be issued soon. “This project is literally mere weeks away from moving forward,” Dilkens said, later clarifying that timeline refers to the tendering phase and not shovels in the ground. Once issued, the tender will allow contractors to bid on the project before a final contract is awarded and construction begins. The hospital — one of the largest infrastructure projects in the region’s history — is expected to include more than 100 additional beds beyond earlier plans, along with space to accommodate future population growth. Dilkens said he expects to see shovels in the ground sometime this year.
