The company that owns the Ambassador Bridge says the City of Windsor, Ont., is blocking its efforts to demolish the long vacant homes it owns on the west end.
City staff issued emergency demolition orders on 17 of the remaining 37 properties owned by the Canadian Transit Company (CTC) in Sandwich late last month.
But the CTC’s vice-president of operations said they want to tear down all the vacant homes it owns as it looks to expand its inspection plaza at the foot of the Ambassador Bridge.
“That is the only way to effectively promote safety and realize the benefits of substantial investment in the community,” said Randy Spader in a statement to CBC News.
He did not respond to followup questions about what the CTC plans to do with properties that sit outside of the proposed plaza’s footprint — including the old J.L. Forster high school, which the CTC asked for permission to demolish on Feb. 12, 2025.
City staff confirm they’re reviewing the demolition request for Forster.
“The application is currently under review and cannot proceed until an engineering report and additional supporting information have been provided,” wrote a City of Windsor spokesperson.
They add that 102 demolition permits have been approved for CTC-owned properties in recent years, with six applications refused.
Those permits were refused, city staff say, because they did not meet requirements outlined in the Sandwich Demolition Control Bylaw.
Council introduced that bylaw when the CTC first started buying up properties in the early 2000s to make way for a second span of the Ambassador Bridge.
It required any property owner looking to tear down a residential building to provide redevelopment plans, which would need council approval.
The CTC-owned homes sat vacant for decades and became the subject of multiple lawsuits because of the impact the boarded up homes had on the neighbourhood.
A permit for that second span was approved by the federal government, but the CTC has said it’s not currently moving forward with that project.
But it is going ahead with an expanded secondary inspection area at the foot of the Canadian entrance to the Ambassador Bridge.
That plaza’s footprint would extend to Felix Avenue alongside the existing railroad and continue toward Mill Street.
“[The] CTC has long fought to demolish the remaining vacant, boarded-up houses in Sandwich and to subsequently invest in the enhancement of the Ambassador Bridge plaza,” wrote Spader.
He said the current demolition orders are insufficient because they don’t apply to all the CTC-owned homes.
“CTC wishes to demolish all vacant houses and to pursue our plaza enhancement project,” he wrote.”
West-end resident Bill Voakes said that when the boarded-up homes were still standing, it “just wasn’t something that was very inviting.”
Now, he said, people on the west end keep looking at each other saying the same thing.
“About time!”
But Voakes looks at it slightly differently.
“I’d rather just put it [like this]: Let’s just keep going, guys, just keep these things coming down and we can clean this up.”
The area’s councillor, Frazier Fathers, couldn’t say why the city is issuing emergency orders now when the homes have sat in disrepair for years .
He said the homes that sit outside the plaza footprint can only have housing built on the cleared land.
“If they showed up tomorrow, they could get a building permit to build a house here. I would not oppose new housing coming into west Windsor. That’s not a bad thing,” said Fathers.
Last year, Windsor’s mayor hinted at an improving relationship with the owners of the Ambassador Bridge as homes were torn down along Indian Road.
“We’ve got a great relationship with the Ambassador Bridge, with Mr. Moroun, trying to get to the other side of this,” said Drew Dilkens in March 2025.
But a lot has changed since those comments in the spring of 2025.
Last winter, the New York Times reported that U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick met with bridge owner Matthew Moroun hours before U.S. President Donald Trump first said he wouldn’t allow the new Gordie Howe International Bridge to open unless the United States owned half the bridge.
A day later, Dilkens said he maintained a good relationship with the bridge owner, but “in some ways it does feel like one step forward and two steps back.”
$6.4B price tag for Gordie Howe bridge has not gone up, even with delays: WDBA
He told reporters later that month that the city would stop looking for a resolution with the company on the boarded-up homes.
Fathers wasn’t able to provide any additional details on discussions about what comes next with bridge-owned properties or the plaza.
But he said these homes coming down is a win for the neighbours who have stuck it out.
“We’re removing properties that have a negative perception on the neighborhood, on the community, and that’s a good thing.”
