New details on Windsor’s long-awaited Costco development in the city’s east end.
Rock Developments president Rocco Tullio says construction on the store along Catherine Street behind Home Depot is moving quickly, adding the steel structure is expected to be completed by the end of this week.
“The gas bar infrastructure is up and in, so they’re looking for a November opening and it’s going to be a welcome addition,” he said.
“People been waiting for this for a very very long time.”
He says off-site infrastructure is now complete with only minor finishing touches left.
“The infrastructure is completely done now, the palm, the roads,” Tullio said.
“Actually, I think the city had a tour [Thursday]. I think the roads were open as of [Friday]. They’re going to keep one of the roads closed just because they don’t want just any transient traffic back there, but, it’s open, it’s completed, it’s landscaped. There’s fine tuning of some things.”
The $130-million development involved an environmental assessment, land assembly, re-zoning, severances, expropriations, and multiple ministry and Indigenous approvals.
Tullio says the infrastructure work came in under budget and ahead of schedule through a partnership with the City of Windsor.
“We probably did it in 50 per cent less the time than what it would typically take a municipality to do so,” he said.
“It was great and hopefully they mirror these type of relationships in the future when they’re doing these big projects because they worked extremely well and it was to the benefit of obviously the taxpayers.”
Tullio says Rock Developments handled the site servicing but has no role in Costco’s construction contract, and couldn’t comment on recent labour concerns tied to that build.
Last week, local iron and sheet metal workers claimed crews from outside the region were brought in to do the steel work at the site.